I'm not exactly shaking in my boots, but this was a solid collection of old-time spooky stories by the heavy-hitters of a bygone era: Poe, Bierce, IrvI'm not exactly shaking in my boots, but this was a solid collection of old-time spooky stories by the heavy-hitters of a bygone era: Poe, Bierce, Irving, Stevenson, Saki, and more....more
I wanted to know why World War II soldiers were such big fans of this coming-of-age tale of a girl growing up poor in Brooklyn around the turn of the I wanted to know why World War II soldiers were such big fans of this coming-of-age tale of a girl growing up poor in Brooklyn around the turn of the century. I read it and now I think I understand. Even if I don't, I still enjoyed the hell out of Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The trials and tribulations of human experience and suffering cross all boundaries, regardless of race, religion or creed. Unless you lack a soul or at least a modicum of empathy, you'll find something to like about this book. ...more
Great writing. Some powerful passages. It's a shame O'Connor died so young. She'd be heralded alongside the Steinbecks and Hemingways if only she had Great writing. Some powerful passages. It's a shame O'Connor died so young. She'd be heralded alongside the Steinbecks and Hemingways if only she had lived long enough to put out more than two novels and a few stories. ...more
I've read three of Forster's most well known novels, and yet, I don't feel I know them at all. Even this one, as I read it, was fading from memory. I I've read three of Forster's most well known novels, and yet, I don't feel I know them at all. Even this one, as I read it, was fading from memory. I don't mean to say that his work is forgettable, but with every Forster book I've read - amazing human portraits and elegant, occasionally profound turns of phrase - somehow they all flitter on out of my head. It's as if they were witty clouds: intelligent and incorporeal. Heck, I've even seen movie versions for a couple of them and I still don't recall what the stories are about.
Why is that? If I could pinpoint it, well, then I wouldn't have started this review with that first paragraph. Perhaps it is because of Forster's penchant for pleasant diversions. He expounds upon ideas as the action unfolds, and that's wonderful! He gives the reader some very nice theories on human behavior to ponder upon. My problem is that I ponder too frickin' much! A writer like Forster is a danger to me. My imagination likes to fly and it's not very well tethered, so when I read books like Howards End with lines like "And of all means to regeneration remorse is surely the most wasteful. It cuts away healthy tissues with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far deeper than the evil."...oh boy, off goes my mind in another direction and the next thing I know I've spent 20 minutes on a single page. Ah, but they are wondrous pages to linger upon. Perhaps it is worth the time. ...more
That was the one thing I thought was missing from Leo Tolstoy's title, War and Peace. I was wrong. Love is in the title, you just have to look fo Love
That was the one thing I thought was missing from Leo Tolstoy's title, War and Peace. I was wrong. Love is in the title, you just have to look for it.
Certainly there is love in peace. It is the time of children, serenity, growth. The mother peacefully raising her children. The farmer lovingly tending his fields. The elderly passing their final days in comfort surrounded by family.
But there is love in war as well. The love for one's country. Such is a person's violent attachment to their motherland that they will die for it. To give up your own life so another should live, that is love indeed.
What is this preoccupation with love? Well, the Leo Tolstoy I've read is incomplete without this aspect within his writing. I knew this book would be about war, specifically Russia's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, but I didn't right off see where the love would come in. It arrived in spades. There are peace-loving characters and there are those who are uber patriotic. Then there is man's love for the good he sees in another man's actions. And then there is the love that weds a couple for life.
Tolstoy's genius as a writer lies in his ability to dash his pen across all this with the same level of integrity regardless of whether his subject is a gallant officer in love with death or the daisy-fresh, springy step of a blossoming girl smitten by good looks and dash. Tolstoy transcends himself to become these hearty or hapless creatures. Then he marries them to our soul. Over these seemingly effortless hundreds upon hundreds of pages, these characters become family to us. We love them like brothers. We root for them. We are annoyed by them. We hate a few of them, but after all, they are family and therefore we must abide by them at least to a certain degree.
And when you step back from the book and see your attachment to these characters, it amazes you…and then it disheartens you, for you realize they are nothing but Tolstoy's puppets used in a grand way so that he may slash and burn the icon of his hatred, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Tolstoy seethes with loathing for this man. In large spurts through out, he devotes half the book to lampooning the man and his military deeds, and then as if that weren't enough, he piles on an average-sized book's worth of epilogue on essentially the same topic. In an effort to portray fairness, he also fillets his own. The Russian military leaders of the day come in for their share of condemnation. At times Tolstoy pours so much vitriol upon his own that you have to stop to recall who "the enemy" is.
Why is this a 5 star book? After all, it's not perfect, being neither fully a novel nor a military treatise, but rather both and not always successfully joined. For all its many pages, there was only a small handful of moments where I felt my heart fly or crash. Perhaps it is the vast scope of it all and the effortless way in which it is carried off. So much happens. Tolstoy gives us many rare experiences, puts us in battle after battle - whether it's upon the field amidst cannon and rifle fire, within the home during a dangerous pregnancy, or between an embattled couple bereft of love. Each of these scenes rings true, ringing to their own tune and yet all combining into one beautiful symphony.
Steinbeck wrote one book about the Arthurian legends. However, he wrote a few books using the Arthurian legend model and Cannery Row is one of them.
HSteinbeck wrote one book about the Arthurian legends. However, he wrote a few books using the Arthurian legend model and Cannery Row is one of them.
Here we have a marvelously fun tale, almost a tall-tale, about the bums, prostitutes and common folk living on the California coast south of the San Francisco bay area in and about Monterey and Carmel-by-the-Sea during the Great Depression. Mischievous scamps get up to no good and little comes of it. All of this is inconsequential and yet intrinsic to human nature.
I finished Cannery Row a week or so ago. It's taken me this long to think about how I wanted to review it. That's not because it's a particularly deep and thought-provoking book. I just needed to examine my feelings, and besides, I feel like Steinbeck's work deserves reflection, even his lesser work.
Is this a lesser Steinbeck work? It's heralded by many and often included in "top Steinbeck" lists. I don't see it. Don't get me wrong, it's quite good, 3.5 stars good I'd say, but it's more of a collection of character sketches loosely tied together rather than a fully realized novel. Ah, but they are incredible sketches!
Cannery Row and Tortilla Flats fall into that Arthurian legend model as stated earlier. These are adventure stories in which "heroes" go on quests in an attempt to obtain whatever is their holy grail. Are there morals and lessons to be learned along the way? Sure. Is any of this meant to be much more than entertainment? I don't think so, but that's me. This is highly enjoyable and I think that's what Steinbeck was going for....more
While everyone under the sun seems to have read this when they were in high school, I just finally got around to it now. Sure, I've Pre-Review review:
While everyone under the sun seems to have read this when they were in high school, I just finally got around to it now. Sure, I've started it before and didn't finish, and I've seen the movie, but come on...I'm almost 40! I think part of me was reluctant, (view spoiler)[knowing that it didn't end well (hide spoiler)] and knowing the basic gist of it besides.
A proper review is coming...
RATING: 4.5 (Slight deduction from the full 5 stars for tediousness in the midsection when Orwell stayed on his soap for too long a stretch.)
Review Introduction
Since just about everyone has already read this or seen the movie or at least has heard of it enough to know the general story, I feel there's little point in giving my two cents on the book itself. What else could be said? Therefore I'll give you an encapsulation of the feelings I took away from it.
Review
"Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you."
The world is 1984 all over again. It has always been and may always be. We humans can and could do anything we want, ANYTHING, so what do we do? We enslave one another. If there's one universal truth among all homo sapiens, it's that we all want happiness. Instead of working towards that goal, we beat it out of one another. I will no doubt go to my grave having lived under this irrational, tyrannical self-rule, still wondering why. Through the fruits of my own labor and personal struggle, I hope I'm able to squeeze enough sweetness from my time here to lie down the final time with a smile on my face. ...more
For years this is what Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea meant to me...
[image] Look familiar? [image]
I know, I know...That's just not what Jules VerFor years this is what Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea meant to me...
[image] Look familiar? [image]
I know, I know...That's just not what Jules Verne intended. Hey, Disney tried and it was fun when I was about 7 or 8, but back when Vernes wrote this, he was writing a true thrill ride!
The story is of an underwater mission to seek and destroy a sea monster. That premise is turned on its head and the story takes a more scientific and character-based slant. Verne takes his readers on a trip to new worlds, some real and just recently discovered as well as his own fictionalized lands.
This must have been an edge-of-your-seater back when it came out. It looks a bit dated when held up to the light of the 21st century though. The writing is not stellar, but as pure adventure there are certain passages that still entertain and send someone like myself back to my childhood and that silly ride at Disney....more
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a quintessential piece of what Christmas is all about (and maybe a touch Halloween, too!). The story succeeds inCharles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a quintessential piece of what Christmas is all about (and maybe a touch Halloween, too!). The story succeeds in entrancing so many of us because it touches upon the emotions, the senses, the human condition, and encapsulates it all in the life and death struggle we all go through...plus, who doesn't love a good ghost story and a happy ending?!
A Christmas Carol has been adapted so many times in so many different ways that this fairytale story has become a bit of a fairytale legend within itself. I was starting to forget if I'd actually ever read it or just assumed I had because I knew the story so well almost as if by osmosis. I still couldn't be sure, so I gave it another read...or rather I listened to it. I found a version with Patrick Stewart doing the narration. And yes as you would imagine, hearing Captain Picard do Tiny Tim is HILARIOUS! But now I'm still left to wonder if I've actually ever literally read the dang thing....more
I can't give this the full five star/classic treatment. It's just too sparse, too spartan. I need a little more color and depth in both setting and chI can't give this the full five star/classic treatment. It's just too sparse, too spartan. I need a little more color and depth in both setting and character. But the story is strong and I'm a big fan of the slice of life (or death) book....more
The split up of the family Karamazov affected me more than all the philosophizing and high-minded ethical discusOh brother Karamazov, where art thou?
The split up of the family Karamazov affected me more than all the philosophizing and high-minded ethical discussion. But that's me. I'm more interested in seeing human nature played out rather than hearing a bunch of people sit around talking about how humans should act. Not since college, when I took so many philosophy classes I could've majored in it, has such debate held my attention. These days few writers can make me read through hundreds of pages of the stuff and still keep my interest. Dostoyevsky can do it, because I know he will reward such loyalty by ending it meaningfully (if not entirely neatly with festive bow-tied packages) and with tense action brought on inevitably by life-like characters pushed to their limits by demons only humans could construct. ...more
The bored, the disenchanted, the wandering wondering and/or nearly thoughtless (except for where their next drink will come from) ex-pat characters, tThe bored, the disenchanted, the wandering wondering and/or nearly thoughtless (except for where their next drink will come from) ex-pat characters, these borderline socialites fighting off ennui, of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises do very little worth reading about and yet read you do. Blame it on the author's clean writing style or his choice of scenes, choosing to paint with poignant words almost documentary style clips of cultural happenings that still excites even in this television/internet era. Hemingway's spartan style and story, which could just as easily have been called And Things Happen should be a recipe for disaster, but instead, you have a classic. ...more
Images...I see them. They are beautiful, but I...The images...There goes someone. What is she doing?...Those images, what do they mean?...There she goImages...I see them. They are beautiful, but I...The images...There goes someone. What is she doing?...Those images, what do they mean?...There she goes again...
And then, as if you weren't confused enough, in the second section of The Sound and the Fury, the narration is taken over by Quentin, a quick-witted, but nearly no more reliable a narrator than before. He is the somewhat confused but chivalrous Harvard-educated brother, who clings to Southern ideals. He is so passionate about his fight to uphold his beloved sister's virtue that it may be the very thing that actually undoes it. Just as you feel you're getting your bearings, we're off again!
Jason. The family bread winner. No-nonsense. Unhappy. Money over ideals. It's his way or the highway. Aside from the at-first confusing addition of "Miss Quentin," this section - as bleak and tense as it is - is the easiest to follow....so Faulkner switches it up again.
Dilsey, the head of the black servants, is the strong counterpoint to the decaying white folks she works for. While them and their way of life in late 1800s/early 1900s Mississippi falls apart, she is rock solid. Through her voice, in this final section we see the story from another perspective, which helps fill in some more of the pieces to this complicated tale.
William Faulkner is a shapeshifting devil of a writer. His pen creates impenetrable morasses of language and plot, and whether you ever emerge from his labyrinthine swamp or not is almost entirely up to you. Few lifelines will be found, and you may easily miss one amid an impossibly long descriptive drenched in the Southern artist's canvass painted lavishly with molasses and sweat. This is Faulkner at his finest. To craft a tale told four times over from disparate sources - one nearly impossible to follow - and expect to keep the reader rooted to the page is an incredible feat. By the end you're sure you've just witnessed black magic. ...more
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