BOOK REPORT: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Title:                                          Never Let Me Go

Author:                                      Kazuo Ishiguro

Original Copyright Date:        2006

My Rating:      3.5 out of 5 stars  
             ( Not what I was expecting, but good )

Backcover Description
     From Booker Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss.
     As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Halisham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules -- and teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.
    Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life, and for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them so special -- and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.  Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is another classic by the author of The Remains of the Day.

My Thoughts

If you read the above description you don't get the feeling that you'll step into an alternate version of England where things just aren't quite the same, a world which allows for places like Halisham.  The veil is slowly lifted as the story progresses as to the reasons Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth were "special" growing up and how being "special" will ultimately affect them. It was interesting being this ignorant of the general plot line going in, and I don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much if I was on top of everything from page one.  If you do want a slight hint as to the setting and tone, the summary on the Time Magazines writeup in the
100 best novels I really don't want to say too much more about the story line, because, if someone reading this decides to read the book, I don't want to ruin the experience.

Expectations aside, this is a very well written story.  I told Maggie during the early chapters that I could see my self trying to write like this. A first person narrative where the lines of yesteryear and today are blurred and subtle.  Similar to listening to a close friend look back to a pivotal time in their lives when you were not a part of it. How they spend just a bit of time explaining who or what something was after they've realized you may not know, jumping around a bit as they go to follow where the memories take them.  A clarification: I have no notions of be successful at it, i could just see myself attempting it.  

Kazuo Ishiguro crafted Never Let Me Go; everything about it was deliberate and the perfect words were chosen for the sublte but powerful drama that plays out in this interesting world. The further I step away from this book, the more I admire what Ishiguro did with it. 

BOOK REPORT: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Title:  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Author:    Mark Twain

Original Copyright Date:        1889

My Rating:   2 out of 5 stars  ( might be a good short story )

Backcover Description

One of the greatest satires in American literature, Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court begins when Hank Morgan, a skilled mechanic in a nineteenth-century New England arms factory, is struck on the head during a quarrel and awakens to find himself among the knights and magicians of King Arthur’s Camelot.

What follows is a culture clash of the first magnitude, as practical-minded Hank, disgusted with the ignorance and superstition of the people, decides to enlighten them with education and technology. Through a series of wonderfully imaginative adventures, Twain celebrates American homespun ingenuity and democracy as compared to the backward ineptitude of a chivalric monarchy. At the same time, however, Twain raises the question of whether material progress necessarily creates a better society. As Hank becomes more powerful and self-righteous, he also becomes more ruthless, more autocratic, and less able to control events, until the only way out is a massively destructive war.

My Thoughts
Mark Twain wrote Connecticut Yankee as a satire on royalty, chivalry and other romantic notions of Arthurian legend (linking it occasionally  to the politics of the antebellum south transitioning to the postbellum reconstruction) However, I have to say he didn't execute it very well. It might have made an entertaining short story, but this went on and on, changing voices, direction, and sometimes bringing the story to a dead stop.

The premise behind this book is a common one now-a-days, but from what I understand, Twain was one of the first, if not the first to have a person bump their head or fall asleep only to wake up in another time. In this case, an intelligent, renaissance man who works in a arms factory wakes up in 6th century England in King Arthur's court.  Think of the Yankee as a nineteen-century MacGyver.

The problem is, the Yankee is too powerful.  He knows everything, from the exact moment in time a solar eclipse will occur over England 1300 years before he is born in Connecticut, to mining and metallurgy, chemistry, biology, politics, art, underwater basket weaving, and other magical skills which shock and awe the native royal ignoramuses.  He is not a likable character at all.  

Twain spends an inordinate amount of narrative having the unlikable yankee waxing philosophical on the mundane aspects of life beyond King Arthur's court, including economics, the politics of "freemen" vs. slaves vs. nobility and the churches motivation for keeping the royal status quo.  Twain will then gloss over years of time where he gains power and creates a network of educated lackeys which work diligently in the background setting up phone lines and creating an intelligentsia which will aid and support his goal of usurping this backward monarchy and setting up a proper republic. I would have found those details much more interesting.

Now, for all of its warts, Connecticut Yankee does have its moments.  There is a fabulous chapter where the Yankee is sent off on a noble quest to free 9 princesses from some evil ogres in which he describes life inside a suit of armor.  Then there is the way he uses the knights as riding advertisements for products for which there isn't a market yet (like soap).  But, these moments are sparse and I had trouble fighting through the doldrums to get to the next enjoyable scene.

On a final note, this story was MUCH darker than I was expecting.  In his quest to oust the nobility  and set up a republic, The yankee is absolutely merciless in its execution.  I've read a few  pieces on Mark Twain since finishing this book, hoping to find some reasoning for the way Twain wrote this novel, only to really find out that Connecticut Yankee is a transition in Twain's literary career, where he enters a very dark phase.  To borrow a section from the Wikipedia page on this Connecticut Yankee:

 It is possible to see the book as an important transitional work for Twain, in that earlier, sunnier passages recall the frontier humor of his tall tales like The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, while the corrosive view of human behavior in the apocalyptic latter chapters is more akin to darker, later Twain works like The Mysterious Stranger and Letters from the Earth.

BOOK REPORT: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Title:                                     The Book Thief

Author:                                  Markus Zusak

Original Copyright Date:    2007

My Rating:    5 out of 5 stars  ( simply amazing )


Backcover Description

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath.

Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.

      By her brother's graveside, Liesel Meminger's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow.  It is The Grave Digger's Handbook, left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.
      But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up and closed down.

My Thoughts

Prologue

featuring

an introduction and an explanation of format 

Why do I find it harder to write book reports for the books I love versus others?  This particular book report has been especially difficult given how much I loved The Book Thief and how much this book has impacted me.  I finished it over a week ago now and I've thought about this book everyday since.  I am still obsessed with it and I'm telling everyone I know who reads on a semi-regular basis to read it.   I've found it hard to articulate exactly what I want to say in a somewhat brief book report without overwhelming the reader or giving away too much of the plot line.

The format of this book report is a bit different as well.  I've broken it up into four main parts similar to the way Markus Zusak breaks up the book where he gives hints as to what is to come with a "featuring" line.  I just thought this was clever and decided to mimic it for this report.

Part One

The Book Report

featuring 

A rave review and a reader jealous of the author

When I finished this book, I told Maggie that even if I don't finish the twenty-five books I set out to read last fall, this project was worth the time and energy because it led me to this book. This is the best book I've read this year. Hands down.

Even though it is technically classified as Young Adult or Children's Fiction, this is not "light" reading; it is a glimpse of the ugliness of War seen through the eyes of a 10 year old orphan girl.

 And it is beautifully done.

Actually, that is one of the major themes of the book.  That humans, can have moments of beauty, tenderness, and joy, even when their world is collapsing, sometimes literally, around them. 

How does Markus Zusak achieve this?  Besides being simply a great, well written story,  he uses two fairly standard literary constructs in interesting ways.

First is his use of Death as the narrator.  I can hear you mumbling as you read this, "How can Death make something as tragic the holocaust readable? That would seem to make it MORE depressing".  Well, Death in this book isn't the tall, stoic, black-robed, scythe-wielding figure we all know and love from the movies.  He cares for the stories of the people he helps cross from the land of the living to where ever they go.  He is an emotional player in all of the events which occur around characters, even before Germany invades Poland.   Death is not an omnipotent third person narrator either. This is Liesel's story, with Death's poignant commentary added in.

Second is Zusak's use of blatant foreshadowing.  Death tells us up front when something significant will happen, including a few details about the event, then backs up a bit and continues telling the story.  Sometimes the forshadowed event will happen within the near future, sometimes within a few months, and sometimes, the event is years away. These events are not always tragic, or sad, or life-changing, but they are important. But when they are heartbreaking, knowing about it before hand doesn't lessen or trivialize the tragedy of the moment, it just takes away a *bit* of the surprise,... sometimes... Blending this interesting use of foreshadowing somehow adds weight to small happy moments in Liesel's life, allowing you to enjoy them more completely with her.

On a side note, after I finished The Book Thief, I did a bit of research to see what else Markus Zusak has written.  I found out that he is now 36 years old as of this writing.  I am 35.  He's written 8 or 9 books in his young career. Needless to say, I am jealous of his creative success...

and this leads me to: 

Part Two

The Inspiration

featuring

A potential early "New Years Resolution"

Many of you know that I've played around with the idea of trying to writing a short story ever since I posted a link about National Novel Writing Month back in November.  The goal of NNWM is to get people to write down 50,000 words (~175 pages) of a story; it doesn't have to be perfect or even good, the organizers just want to inspire people to put pen to paper and get started. Neil Gaiman's notes about The Graveyard Book inspired me further when he said he's had the idea for the book ever since his son was two years old and wandering around a graveyard behind an old church.

Markus Zusak builds into The Book Thief simply written and illustrated  stories created by the characters themselves and shown completely within the narrative Death is giving us; a short story within a book if you will.  These stories, these characters actually, are the metaphorical straw that broke the novelist camel's back and I am now determined to actually write something of my own...

I don't have any subject, characters, or special theme in mind as of yet; I just know I want to write something. I also don't have any expectations that what I write will be any good. I am now constantly looking out for inspiration in everything I  do.   I figure I would start with simple story at first, which I can then, over time, expand into a legitimate short story that I wouldn't mind if some else actually reads. I think I will make this my next "New Years Resolution".  I haven't worked out the logistics of it or anything, so stay tuned.

The Ending

featuring

wrapping up the book report

I don't know why I seem to have a connection to books about war.  I'm not talking about non-fiction accounts of the political causes thereof or military strategies employed during such-and-such battle, but the personal and social ramifications of one of the most devastating wars ever.   Night, by Elie Wiesel, and One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn still impact me even though I read them waaaaay back in high school.  And I know, The Book Thief will live long in my memory as well.

BOOK REPORT: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Title:                               The Graveyard Book

Author:                            Neil Gaiman

Original Copyright Date:          2008

My Rating:               4.5 out of 5 stars  ( loved it)


Back-cover Description
It takes a graveyard to raise a child. Nobody Owens , known as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised by ghosts, with a guardian who belongs to neitherthe world of the living or the dead. There are adventures in the graveyard for a boy -- an ancient Indigo Man, a gateway to the abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible Sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, he will be in danger from the man Jack-- who has already killed Bod's family.

My Thoughts
The Graveyard Book is a fabulously entertaining, not-so-standard coming-of-age story about a boy (standard) being raised in an old, no longer used, graveyard by the ghosts buried there (not-standard).  This story is listed as "Young Adult" or "Children's" but I don't think Neil designed it that way, he just set out to write a great story that just happened to be accessible to most age groups.  

Most of Neil's writing have a dark edge to it, and The Graveyard Book is no different; it is set in a graveyard and death is a not-so-subtle theme throughout, starting off with the murder of Bod's family and continuing with the community of souls who help raise him.  However, the myriad souls which adopt Bod, who range from a roman statesman, a few aristocrats, some well respected craftsmen and  teachers, and others give Bod a diverse and somewhat normal upbringing.  

We've learned from Harry Potter and other young adult stories, death doesn't need to be omitted from young adult books if addressed properly,by not dancing around it and allowing the characters to deal with it. and Neil definitely balances this topic expertly.  The Graveyard Book is an expertly written, clever, and fun story that no one should miss.

BOOK REPORT: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Title:                                           Lolita

Author:                                       Vladimir Nabokov

Original Copyright Date:          1955

My Rating:            4 out of 5 stars  ( well done )


Back-cover Description
Awe and exhilaration-- along with heartbreak and mordant wit-- abound in Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Most of all, it is a meditation on love -- love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation

My Thoughts
When Lolita opens up, it immediately sets this story as a memoir-confession of a dying man in a prison or mental institution.  The main character, and narrator, Mr Humbert Humbert starts off as a child of 13 falling in love one summer with a girl (also 13).  She dies of Typhus suddenly.  

We then jump ahead to his adult years where he is a writer and academic in psychology and literature and he still has a fascination with pubescent girls between the ages of 10 and 14. He admits that he is the creepy man in the park that goes there only to ogle the girls, or nymphets, as he calls them. He admits he's had several trips to mental institutions and that he often spends the evening with young looking prostitutes. 

How does one say that they liked a book where the main storyline revolves around such a off-putting pedophile?   This is where Nabokov shines and my experience as a literary critic falters.  I just don't have a way to articulate *how* Nabokov keeps you engaged in such an off-putting story. But he does. I can really only give you my thoughts as I read it.   

Lolita is divided into two parts. In the first part of the novel, you are in the head of a mad-man crazed by pure, unadulterated (pun-intended??) love and devotion to his Lolita.  It seemed to me, in the first chapters describing their relationship, that Humbert is a full on schizophrenic where he became that 13 year old boy again.  His adoration of Lolita, his nervousness in anticipation of simply being in the same room as her;  the luck of a glancing touch seemed just like a 13 year old would behave around his first crush.  Nabokov balances this out with a narrator that interrupts himself to correct himself, or to say that he doesn't quite remember this detail or that. It pulled me out of his head, enough to keep me separated.  

There were also very obvious omissions to his story which kept me at a safe distance.  Everything he recollects is his side only; he doesn't project emotion for other characters, he only provides insight into the scenes which actively or directly concerned him. The other characters dialog is only there to either frame his thoughts or move the story along, but only as much as needed.  For example, Lolita's mother, Charlotte, dies after being hit by a car whilst in a panic having discovered Mr. Humbert's feeling towards her daughter.  Lolita was away at camp at the time and gets picked up by Mr. Humbert who told everyone (including Lo) that she was merely in a bad accident and in a hospital that was no where near where they lived.  In the telling of this scene, the narrator never tells of Lolita's concern or anxiety over her mother's condition.  It's as if she is just there for the ride; happily content on being his seductress.   When she finally says that she wants to go see her mother, he says, "She's Dead" and that's the end of the chapter.  That's all that is mentioned of it. No, "She cried for days, or She shed a single tear and glanced off into the distance"... Nothing.  They just keep driving around the country. I think this is what the literary critics call an unreliable narrator. 

Part two of the novel deals with the unraveling of his "peaceful life" with his beloved Lolita. Cracks appear in the lustful walls around the story through which you start to see glimpses of how Lolita actually viewed the situation.  She wasn't the willing partner he made her out to be.  After Lolita "betrays" him and escapes, the walls crumble all together.  Again, this reinforces the unreliable narrator construct.

At this point, Nabokov transforms the story with a seemingly theater of the absurd quality where actual emotion on the part of anyone is scarce.  His loss makes him numb, and that numbness seems to be projected onto other characters.  Mr. Humbert's desire to kill the man who took the object of all his love and devotion away is presented in a simply stoic and matter of fact way; the way a farmer might say he had to kill a wolf who got into his hen house...  Except, in this story, the man on the other side of the gun is also just as unemotional about his predicament.

All in all, it was a very good book, Literature in every sense of the word.  If you can get past the base pedophelia, then it is a good read.

BOOK REPORT: Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Title:                           Picture of Dorian Gray

Author:                       Oscar Wilde

Original Copyright Date:          1891

My Rating:          4 out of 5 stars  ( well done )

Back-cover Description
Oscar Wilde brings his enormous gifts for astute social observation and sparkling prose to The Picture of Dorian Gray, his dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. This dandy, who remains forever unchanged—petulant, hedonistic, vain, and amoral—while a painting of him ages and grows increasingly hideous with the years, has been horrifying, enchanting, obsessing, even corrupting readers for more than a hundred years.

Taking the reader in and out of London drawing rooms, to the heights of aestheticism, and to the depths of decadence, The Picture of Dorian Gray is not only a melodrama about moral corruption. Laced with bon mots and vivid depictions of upper-class refinement, it is also a fascinating look at the milieu of Wilde’s fin-de-siècle world and a manifesto of the creed “Art for Art’s Sake.”

My Thoughts

Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray is a gothic horror story which boils the entirety of the aesthetic movement, of which he was a proponent, into a nice and neat two-hundred pages.  

"It is silly of you , for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

This was an enjoyable read;  Wilde's poignant witticisms and  social critique made me laugh out loud and thankful that I don't live during a time where I could possibly be on the wrong side of his pen.  

While the aesthetic movement rhetoric was, pun intended, shallow, it seemed a proper fit for those who, as Wilde states, practice the fine and noble aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.  

As a quick aside, I'm thinking of going back to school to get my Masters in Aristocratic Arts... Advanced Matchbook Arrangement looks intriguing, but I don't have the prerequisites yet ( Muted Gossip, and Theories of Understated Social Disapproval)

"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment on sits down to think, one becomes all nose , or all forehead, or something horrid" 

 It was very interesting to me to see how the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde theme of the duality of man was presented by Wilde.  In Robert Louis Stevenson's famous work, the duality was brought out by a drug,  and his "alter-ego" was responsible for all of the evil doings.  Dr. Jekyll had a sense of plausible deniability in his actions as he was physically transformed by the drug; Mr Hyde was a different persona.  Dorian's duality is more subtle; it arises out of the sole desire to stay beautiful.  Dorian has no Mr. Hyde, no alter-ego. The painting becomes Dorian's "Tell Tale Heart"; however, because he can keep it in the attic, as his little secret, watching the painting show his every evil while he stays the same beautiful Dorian becomes a thrill in itself.   In both stories, the main characters start to lose control over the evil outlet and their actions become more horrific and lead to a self-destructive and tragic end. 

I really liked this book and would recommend it for anyone wanting a short dark tale that is extremely well written.

BOOK REPORT: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Title:              Good Omens: 

                       The Nice and Accurate Prophecies 

                       of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Author:        Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Copyright Date:       2000  (my edition 2006)

My Rating:  5 out of 5 stars  ( Excellent and Funny )

Backcover Description

The world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday. Just before dinner, according toThe Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies written in 1655. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist.

My Thoughts

"You can't be certain that what's happening right now isn't exactly right, from an ineffable point of view"

When I mentioned my reading project to my gaming group, the consensus was that I needed to read Good Omens if I hadn't already.  Now, I've read 4 or 5 Pratchett books previously, and anyone who has read any of his books knows how funny and clever he is. His writing is simply a delight to read. It keeps you smiling, sometimes laughing out loud, and will make you think at times as well. 

For those not familiar with Neil Gaimon, he got his start as a graphic novelist, with The Sandman Series  being the most famous, and then expanded into other writing forms.  He wrote the books Stardust and Coraline from which successful movies were made and has a host of other Fiction and Young Adult Fiction in his portfolio. 

You can tell that Terry Pratchett had  much to do with the prose and style of the book.  That same wit is there, but Neil Gaiman brought a darker subject (how do you get darker than the soon to arrive Armageddon) that adds depth to the writing.  

This book was EXTREMELY well done. The story and characters of Good Omens are great.  As the back-cover description outlines, the Armageddon is on its way and the two main characters, an Angel named Aziraphale and a demon named Crowley, who are actually good friends, are reluctant players in the ineffable divine plan.  The four horsemen ride motorcycles with plague being replaced with pollution since the advent of vaccines. There are witches and witch-hunters and the Anti-Christ who was misplaced at birth and is being raised in the suburbs.  

"You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse driven consumerism, don't you?" 

I don't want to go too much more into the plot, but I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting a light-hearted, funny read that is ineffably great.