The Olio Scholar Project

Monday, October 10, 2011

The Big Finale: The year of the book...

My thirty-fifth year has come and gone. I've surpassed my goal of twenty-five books in a year and I am very pleased with how the the Olio Scholar project went. I read a variety of material and in the process changed my lifestyle, hopefully for the better. Reading is now an important part of my routine and looks to continue that way after this project fades away.

So what does my thirty-sixth year of life hold for the Olio Scholar project?

I plan to keep reading, although I don't have a set goal for the number of books I want to read this year. However, if don't reach at least twenty I will probably be disappointed. And please, visit the recommendations page and tell me what I should read next!
I plan on continuing the book reports. This blog shall continue to be my reading home; these reports are a good way to keep me motivated. However, If I do miss a book report every so often, don't criticize me too much.
I also plan to write some short stories this year to see how that works out. I have bits and pieces of inspiration laying around; a character here, a theme there, but no concrete story lines yet. I am a bit nervous about this goal actually. Considering how much work I put into these reports, constantly editing new drafts until it is satisfactory, I can only imagine how many iterations the stories will go through. And who knows if I will let anyone actually read them.

But enough about next year, it's the time we've all been waiting for: The first annual Olio Scholar Awards!

Best Novel

Winner: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Other Nominees:Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Huckleberry Finn is a classic in every sense of the word, Good Omens was one of the most clever and funny books I've recently read and Jane Eyre exceeded my expectations enough to be considered as a nominee. But when it comes down to it, this wasn't much of a competition. The Book Thief was an amazing book. There wasn't a day that went by for months after reading it in which I didn't think about this book.

Best Non-Fiction

Winner: The Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. Freeman
Other Nominees: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

I didn't read many non-fiction books during this year, but of the two that I did read, I enjoyed the The Forgotten 500 a bit more. I guess war stories are more engaging than stories about linguists.

Best Novella

Winner: Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Other Nominees: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

In a surprising upset, Picture of Dorian Gray won out over A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I rated the former four stars while the latter got a full five. However, in the voting, I found that A Christmas Carol has its appeal around Christmas. Reading it in July doesn't carry the same weight whereas Picture of Dorian Gray can be read all throughout the year and therefore got the nod.

Best New (to me) Author

Winner: Neil Gaiman
Other Nominees: Kazuo Ishiguro, M.T. Anderson, Markus Zusak, Pramoedya Ananta Toer

I thought Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett was a great book. Although the writing style is obviously Terry Pratchett, there is an edge to the story that his other stories didn't have. I was interested in seeing what Neil Gaiman's own books were like. I started to research which books I should read and found out three things: one, that his Sandman comic series got critical accolades from both the comic and non-comic critics, two, his books were wildly imaginative, with memorable characters and well written, and three, he has a very large cult following. Well, after reading the entire Sandman series and The Graveyard book, I find myself part of the cult. I will definitely be reading more of his books. I also have him to thank for opening my eyes to the world of graphic novels. I realize now that the comic book world is made up of more than just super heroes and damsels in distress.

Best Short Story

Winner: "The Suicide Club" by Robert Louis Stevenson
Other Nominees: "Markheim" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "Thrawn Janet" by Robert Louis Stevenson

All of the short stories I read this year were packaged as part of the Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde book. The Suicide Club was by far my favorite story line. It is actually three stories following a Prince visiting a suicide club for an adrenaline rush. All of the other stories just didn't have the entertainment value of that series and it made for an easy win in this category. Please note, several of the individual Sandman comics could have been nominees in this category but I decided to keep each volume as an entity and not split them out.

Best Play

Winner: "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett
Other Nominees: None

I only read one play this year, so by default it is the winner. Maybe next year there will be more potential nominees.

Best Graphic Novel

Winner: "The Sandman Vol 8: World's End" by Neil Gaiman
Other Nominees: The Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country,The Sandman Vol 9: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman

While I enjoyed most of the Sandman volumes, I really enjoyed the volumes which were collections of one-off stories. Neil Gaiman's imagination really shined through in those particular comics. My favorite volume was World's End which was a collection inspired by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The World's End is a Tavern/Inn where travelers from all over, including Fairies, Pixies, Humans, Immortals, et al. have to wait for a reality storm caused by Dream's depression to clear. To pass the time, they tell absolutely fabulous stories; many of which have other stories nested within them. The whole World's End volume was a treat to read.

To wrap things up, here is a list of everything I've read for fun this year. I've ordered them by my rating and within each rating category, I've tried to sort them again. However, it was very difficult to sort the remaining books as the criteria depends on what you are looking for in a book at any one time. For example, I have Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov rated as a four-star book, but also The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake. Would anyone say that The Hot Rock is at the same "level" as Lolita? No. But I was entertained by David Westlake's crime caper and thought that, for its genre, it deserved four stars.

Novels

Novellas

Short Stories

Non Fiction

Graphic Novels

Plays

Waiting for Godot by Samual Beckett (3.5 stars)

Sunday, October 9, 2011

BOOK REPORT: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Title: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Copyright Date: 1967

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars ( epic )

Probably Garcia Marquez's finest and most famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of the art of fiction.

My Thoughts
I started to read One Hundred Years of Solitude on a whim. I picked it up while I was waiting for an evening meeting to start and I was engaged in the Buendia family immediately. It wasn't until about a week later that I could start reading it however and during this hiatus, I found myself thinking about the book and where it might take me.

What I quickly found out was that Marquez was placing me in an epic tale that doesn't leave Macondo. But it's the small details in this large story that make it so rich. It is also the small details which make this an unexpectedly odd story. One Hundred Years of Solitude doesn't start out odd; the oddness evolves and grows throughout the book along with the town. Just little things in the beginning really, a girl eating dirt here, a ghost there, maybe some blood flowing up hills on occasion. By the time I met the third generation of Beundias, nothing surprised me.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the title. I usually associate solitude with loneliness and depression, but Marquez portrays solitude as a driving force in life. It is woven it into every character's life, whether they were happy, sad, popular or a wall-flower. Many seek solitude as a way to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life, while others do anything they can to avoid it.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a deep and complex story. I enjoyed it on my first read, but I rated it four and a half stars because I know there are elements that I missed. It is very possible that I will be able to up the rating to five-stars on my next read.

Friday, September 30, 2011

GRAPHIC NOVEL REPORT: The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

I have a secret.

The twenty-eight books that I've read this year are not the only things I've read. I was sneaking in some other material. "GASP!", you say. "What could you be reading to keep it secret from the six people who follow your blog?"

I was cheating on my "word-books" with some comic books. That's right, I read graphic novels. I read the entire Sandman Series by Neil Gaiman. You might remember Neil from such book reports as The Graveyard Book and Good Omens with Terry Pratchett. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.

Neil's written hundreds of comics throughout the years, but his most famous comic series was The Sandman. It was a serial comic which ran monthly from 1988 to 1996 totaling seventy-five issues.

The Sandman series revolves around Morpheus, the King of Dreams. Morpheus rules over everyone's dreams and is one of the seven 'Endless'. They are not gods, they are older than them. The Endless are Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium (who used to be Delight)

Morpheus the Dream Lord

The series is broken up into ten graphic novels (over 2000 total pages!). A couple of the graphic novels are a collection of one-off stories, but most of them are dedicated to one story-arc in the series.

Preludes and Nocturnes

The Doll's House

Dream Country

Season of Mists

A Game of You

Fables and Reflections

Brief Lives

Worlds' End <my personal favorite >

The Kindly Ones

The Wake

There is also bonus novel which came out in 2003 which dedicates one story to each of the Endless.

Endless Nights

The series starts off when a rich eccentric recluse who doesn't want to die finds a way to summon the Endless and capture them. Trying to live forever he summons Death, but gets Dream instead. After eighty years, Dream finally escapes to find that he is weakened and his kingdom is crumbling.

After Dream gets his kingdom back in working order, the story line evolves away from Morpheus as the main character. Instead, he takes a back seat to other characters and stories. These comics show how much influence Dream has in our waking world. Dream has been around from the beginning, behind only Destiny and Death and he has seen it all. Love, hate, power and greed all start with a Dream.

I really enjoyed these comics. There is an element of horror in the series (especially in the beginning), but each comic was infused with mythology and folklore. Some story lines were better than others obviously; there will be natural up's and down's to a series this long, but Neil Gaiman is such a great story teller that the realm of Dreams really comes alive.

The Sandman is proof that comics have evolved away from the standard super-hero/villain template from our childhood. These are deep stories with real character development. After I finished this series, I started researching the genre a bit more. There is a whole world out there of well regarded, non-superman/batman comics out there that piqued my interest and I will definitely be adding them into my rotation.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

BOOK REPORT: Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett

Title: Waiting for Godot
Author: Samuel Beckett
Copyright Date: 1953

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars ( ok )

Back-Cover Description
A seminal work of twentieth-century drama, Waiting for Godot was Samuel Beckett's first professionally produced play. It opened in Paris in 1953 at the tiny Left Back Theatre de Babylone, and has since become a cornerstone of twentieth-century theater.

The story line evolves around two seemingly homeless men waiting for someone --or something-- named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree on a barren stretch of road, inhabiting a drama spun from their own consciousness. The result is a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes, and nonsense, which has been interpreted as a somber summation of mankind's inexhaustible search for meaning. Beckett's language pioneered an expressionistic minimalism that captured the existentialism of post-World War II Europe. His play remains one of the most magical and beautiful allegories of out time.

My Thoughts
If you want an example of a play in the 'Theater of the Absurd' style, look no further than Waiting for Godot. It is a very simple play; just two guys hanging around a tree waiting for Godot to arrive. Their conversations are playful, light, sometimes funny. But within the playfulness you can see the social commentary in between the lines. The biggest problem I had with this play is that the characters were SO absurd that I couldn't care for them. These men had absolutely no short term memory and their dialog was based on this instantaneous ignorance. They just kept going around in circles. Every now and then, a few other characters would enter the scene to break the circle in their own weird way but even they don't remember events that occurred the previous day. I couldn't take the absurdity and apply it to humanity and therefore the social commentary was lost on me.

This isn't to say I wasn't entertained by the dialog, I just couldn't get everything Samuel Beckett wanted me to get out of it. I saw it more as a literary Abbott and Costello routine.

It is obviously better to see a play acted out on stage with good actors; but if the play is good, reading it can be a somewhat adequate substitute. Shakespeare comes to mind. I think Waiting for Godot needs to be seen to be truly appreciated.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

BOOK REPORT: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Title: The Things They Carried
Author: Tim O'Brien
Copyright Date: 1990

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars ( good read)

Back-Cover Description
They carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28-pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated Bibles, each other. And, if they made it home alive, they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war that history is only beginning to absorb. Since its first publication, The Things They Carried has become an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic work of American literature, and a profound study of men at war that illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul.

My Thoughts
The Things They Carried is a collection of short stories that tell of the author's time in Vietnam. The odd thing about them is that they are fictional, but told as a direct memoir. Throughout the book, Tim O'Brien addresses the reader directly to talk about why he writes fictional stories about his experience during the war. He says that sometimes fiction is more truthful than the real thing.

While this was a good book, The Things They Carried lacked the cohesion of the other war books I've read. As I mentioned above, the author jumps back and forth between addressing the reader directly and addressing his memories. Jumping back and forth between the two breaks up the flow of the book at times and seems redundant in certain occasions. While most of the stories have a common thread that follows the natural passage of time in the war, you can tell that some of the stories were composed as separate entities, probably for different periodicals where one can't assume that the other ones have already been read.

Like all good war stories, the reader is closely tied to the horrors, tension, boredom, solitude and camaraderie of war. The stories revolve around the friendships formed and lost, and the soul searching which takes place everyday in a war zone. The stories also touch on how a soldiers life is affected when returning from active combat; how you are never the same when you experience those horrors first hand.

One of the more powerful stories for me actually takes place before Vietnam. It is about the author as a young man in a small Wisconsin town when he gets the dreaded draft letter. He is forced to choose between possibly dying in a war that he didn't believe in and disappointing his family and community by running away across the Canadian border. I honestly don't know what I would have done in his situation and I am glad I didn't have to make that choice. I also hope that Sims doesn't have to make it either when he gets to be draft age.

I think I would have enjoyed it more not reading it cover to cover but by treating The Things They Carried as a magazine and spaced the readings out over a few months. Each story is well written and deserves to be read in its own time.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

BOOK REPORT: At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien

Title: At Swim-Two-Birds
Author: Flann O'Brien
(aka Brian O'Nolan)
Copyright Date: 1939

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars (over my head)

Backcover Description
Along with one or two books by James Joyce, Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds is the most famous (and infamous) of Irish novels published in the twentieth century.

A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy and frequently drunk Irish college student who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When not in bed (where he seems to spend most of his time) or reading, he is composing a mischief-filled novel about Dermont Trellis, a second-rate author whose characters ultimately rebel against him and seek vengeance. From drugging him as he sleeps to dropping the ceiling on his head, these figures of Irish myth make Trellis pay dearly for his bad writing.

Hilariously funny and inventive, At Swim-Two-Birds has influenced generations of writers, opening up new possibilities for what can be done in fiction. It is a true masterpiece of Irish literature

My Thoughts

I was really excited about reading this book. It had all of the elements that, when used properly, can make for a really interesting read. It had a very compelling structure (it is a great example of meta-fiction); it was portrayed as wildly comic, and it was on several lists of recommended books. Unfortunately, most of the humor was above my head, buried deep inside stories pulled from Irish folklore of which I was totally ignorant.

The structure of the book is great in theory. Our unnamed narrator is a lazy college student who is writing a novel when not at a pub with his friends or sleeping. His novel is about a lazy man, Dermont Trellis, who sits in bed all day writing bad novels. The characters he creates are just like real actors in that they play the role outlined in the script and when not a scene, they hang out like normal people do. There are some American cowboys, there are several female leads, a few villains, an Irish version of Puck from a Midsummer Night's Dream, and Finn McCool (Finn is a warrior of Ireland from long ago which folklore has turned into more hyperbole than human.), among others. Some of characters fall in love, they play cards together, and otherwise sit around lamenting the work they must perform at the behest of Dermont. These characters get so fed up with the bad writing that they start to find ways to keep him asleep so they don't have worry about him writing. Of course everything escalates to the point of the cast writing their own book making Dermont the actor in a play in which his character is dragged through a gauntlet of painful tortures. It sounds pretty neat, huh? Flann O'Brien does an excellent job making it easy to keep track of all of the nested layers, but as you will see below the content portrayed within these layers was just too foreign to me.

Every time I told someone about this book, the first question was, "What does the title mean?" Swim-Two-Birds is a ford on the River Shannon in Ireland where one of the mythical characters, King Sweeney, visits briefly. This is the same ford that St. Patrick used to cross the river Shannon. I don't know why it was important for St. Patrick to cross at this ford, but it is one of its claims to fame.

For those with intimate knowledge of Irish folklore, you know that King Sweeney, also known as "Mad Sweeney" is a Irish king of yore that was cursed by a bishop after Sweeney tried to kill him when the church bells woke him up one morning. This curse turned Sweeney into an insane man-bird flying around all of Ireland for years until he was finally forgiven. Then he was killed by a spear. Please, go ahead and read those sentences again. This is just the beginning of how over-my-head this novel was. I looked up Mad King Sweeney on Wikipedia just to get a context of the story being told but never really understood *why* it was being told.

After a while I stopped trying to dig up every reference to Irish folklore and just pushed through it. Most of the humor was lost on me and I found myself unable to read the book for longer than twenty or thirty minutes before I would compulsively (sometimes mid-sentence) play a game on my phone, or just go to sleep.

At Swim-Two-Birds also changes style throughout the book. I counted at least seven distinct writing styles and there were probably more that I just didn't notice. These styles are meant to parody other famous Irish novels and folktales. Unfortunately for me, I haven't read any of the source materials and this layer was lost on me. I read several reviews of the book and the consensus was that if you are intimately familiar with these stories you can really see Flann's genius come through. Oh, well. I guess I need to take their word for it.

I was really hoping that I would like this book. But, my ignorance of the minutiae of Irish folklore and literature kept me from completely immersing myself in the story. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they could prove to me that they are very familiar with Irish literature.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

BOOK REPORT: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Title: Jane Eyre
Author: Charlotte Bronte
Original Copyright : 1847

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars ( classic )

My Thoughts
A few years ago, I started reading Jane Eyre but didn't finish it. I got about twenty percent through before I had to put it down to focus on other things. Up to that point, Jane Eyre didn't engage me; I found it verbose and dry. Once I was finally able to make enough time to pick up the book again, I didn't have the motivation to re-familiarize myself with the characters and story line As a result, the book sat on the shelf in my bedside table for a long time.

Now, fast-forward to last September when I started up the Olio Scholar project. Jane Eyre was still sitting on the shelf haunting me. I knew that I wanted to finish it. It was too high on most reading lists to be ignored. Too many people I knew listed it as an all-time favorite. I vowed that I would try to read it again as part of the project. However, I saved Jane Eyre until I got close to my goal of 25 books in a year before I picked it up. I figured it would take me a while to push through the approximate five-hundred pages my edition contained and I didn't want to have success hinging on it.

Jane Eyre definitely exceeded my expectations. I was expecting a dry story about a strong woman in a man's world finding love similar to Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I expected it to be written in a dry, grammatically correct manner, providing insight into the human psyche with stuffy Victorian wit amid an oppressive social structure. The language was definitely formal but this wasn't the typical uptight British love story. It is about a pious woman who desires a full life, with love simply being one piece. This is one of the reasons that, in 1847, the book was controversial. It was not a woman's place to be unsatisfied with her lot in life. Her role was to marry as well as possible and then do everything she could to ensure the husband was well tended to.

One thing I didn't expect the was the dark, Edgar-Allen Poe like undertones foreshadowed by the rookery looming over Thornfield Hall. I didn't expect the mysterious noises in the attic and unexplained fires. I didn't expect the secrecy of Mr Rochester's staff. I welcomed this dark layer as it added a depth to the story that kept me engaged.

One other thing that I noticed reading Jane Eyre. I now know where J.K. Rowling got her inspiration for Harry Potter's upbringing; the parallels are undeniable. Does this sound familiar? Jane's parents die and as an infant she is left at the door step of her aunt who promises to raise the child as her own, but instead treats her like dirt. The children already in the household are pompous, rude brats who get everything they want and forever torment the new addition to the family. The protagonist orphan is rescued from this domestic hell by going off to boarding school where she make a few friends and excels in her studies. I wonder if the Bronte estate gets any of the money from the Harry Potter series?

I am glad I finished Jane Eyre. It was an excellent book and It is easy to see why it is such a lasting story. It still had its dry parts, don't get me wrong; I said, "Get on with it!" on several occasions but I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a layered, well-written story.