queenlyzard

{1222-1227}

*** 1222) "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

No, I've never read this-- or any Austen book-- before now. Amazing, isn't it? I enjoyed it quite a lot-- the short chapters offset the period language and made it easier to read than I expected. I love Austen's dry, situational sense of humor, and I was thoroughly swept away by the main plot once I got into it, which did take me a little while. I don't know that it will become one of those favorites that I read over and over, but I'm definitely happy to have read it once.

Quotes:

Charlotte: "' Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation...' " 24 Not sure if I agree entirely, but it's a very interesting point to consider!

Darcy:  " 'The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.' " 49 Austen actually has a real knack for being snarky, come to think of it.

of Elizabeth: "It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty; and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition." 227 I envy her that! And they totally got her wrong in the movie with Kiera Knightly (although I liked the movie all the same, romantic piece of drivel that it was. We watched it and read the book for book club last month. I really was annoyed at the movie for leaving out some major plot-points, though).

of Mr. Bennet "...where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given." 231 What a marvelous description!


*** 1223) "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck

Enjoyable, although verging on the overly simple at times. Unexpectedly funny in places, although I wouldn't describe it as a humorous work on the whole, as many people do. A wonderfully astute sketch, a pie-slice of life, a celebration of normalcy and oddity... all the stuff I tend to find boring in standard "literature," but written sparely and lightly enough that it isn't boring.

"...there are two possible reactions to social ostracism-- either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world, and does even worse things. This last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma." 132

" 'It has always seemed strange to me,' said Doc, 'The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.' " 135


**** 1224) "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

Marvelous-- everything a novel should be. A tall tale, and a wonderful one. A grouchy old man in a nursing home recalls his days with the circus, and as he finds his power over his own mind and body slipping away from him, he is reminded of the experiences that make life worth living. Adventure, intrigue, and wonder abound.


*** 1225) "War of Worlds" by H. G. Wells (on audio)

Wells is an excellent storyteller, and even though I already knew the basic plot of this one, I followed it with no less eagerness for that. It was amazing being reminded throughout how different the world was a mere hundred years ago-- no mass media, no means of communicating over a distance, no rapid transit of any kind. Nothing electric, for crying out loud. How did they manage? It's amazing to see how even such little questions as food storage were handled so differently then. I found it interesting to speculate, too, how science fiction has changed over the years-- I mean, in every era, we imagine, for example, aliens coming to earth with technology we've never seen, but the way in which we envision that futuristic technology depends so much on our own stage of development. Wells' Martians wouldn't even start to be a threat today, and "Independence Day" would make no sense at all in his time.


**** 1226) "Bagombo Snuffbox: Uncollected Stories" by Kurt Vonnegut

Well, if these are the stories that didn't make it into the original collection, I'd better go read those ASAP, because these were amazing. Vonnegut seems a little less cynical, a little more lighthearted and uplifting, in his short fiction. I expected the reverse. He has fun playing with little "what if" scenarios, but realistic and un.

And I'm very glad I finally got a good look at the title. I've been thinking of this book as "Bombago Snuffbox" for years. I really can be rather lysdexic at times. Oh wait, crud, that's the actual name of the place, too? I had that wrong as well. Oy, what am I going to do with me?


*** 1227) "Timequake" by Kurt Vonnegut

Interesting, but not my favorite of his books by any means. Took me a bit to get into this one. Also, very baffling in parts because he talks about himself alternately as a character in the book and as the author writing it.  Impossible to tell fact from fiction for a large part of the novel.  Some good quotes, though:

"I myself say atomic energy has made people unhappier than they were before, and that having to live in a two-hemisphere planet has made our aborigines a lot less happy, without making the wheel-and-alphabet people who 'discovered' them any fonder of being alive than they were before.
"Then again, I am a monopolar depressive descended from monopolar depressives. That's how come I write so good." 89 I love Vonnegut.

Vonnegut's suggested further amendments to the US Constitution:
"/Article XXVIII:/ Every newborn shall be sincerely welcomed and cared for until maturity.
"/Article XXIX:/ Every adult who needs it shall be given meaningful work to do, at a living wage." 152

"At the time of their invention, books were devices as crassly practical for storing or transmitting language,albeit fabricated from scarcely modified substances found in forest and field and animals, as the latest Silicon Valley miracles. But by accident, not by cunning calculation, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and soul, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about." 157 A fascinating theory.

"Any dream of taking care of our people [needs] some scheme for giving us all the support and companionship of extended families, within which sharing and compassion are more plausible than in an enormous nation..." 164

"Still and all, why bother [to write]? Here's /my/ answer: Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don't care about them. You are not alone.' " 193

{1222-1227}

*** 1220) "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates" by Tom Robbins

In spite of my longstanding love of Robbins, it took me a while to get into this book. I often have the same problem with Vonnegut, for some reason. But in the end, as always, I loved it. Robbins has such an excellent grasp of how to mingle the absurd with a realistic story until you have trouble remembering which bits should be hard to believe. And somehow, the most ridiculous parts are always the most true to human nature.

Quotes:

"Silence is a mirror. So faithful, and yet so unexpected, is the reflection it can throw back at men that they will go to almost any length to avoid seeing themselves in it..." 234

"[America is] an 'abusive democracy,' one in which everybody wants to control everybody else. Lately, even tolerance, itself, has been usurped by the sanctimonious and the opportunistic, and turned into an instrument for intimidation, bullying, and extortion." 258

An interesting sociological observation:

" [Skeeter Washington said] '...I fail to detect where they be a hell of a lot of /difference/ between the terms 'colored people' and 'people of color.' Or between ''Afro-American' and 'African-America,' far as that goes.'
'The distinctions are subtle, all right,' Switters admitted. 'Too subtle for the rational mind. Only the political mind can grasp them. I suspect there's a bid for empowerment behind it all, the power going to whoever seizes the right to coin the names. In a reality made of language, the people who get to name things have psychological ownership of those things.'" 211

Switters: "'Politics is where people pay somebody large sums of money to impose his or her will on them. Politics is sadomasochism.' "
Also, he says "Terrorism is the only imaginable logical response to America's foreign policy, just as street crime is the only imaginable logical response to America's drug policy." 394

I had to copy this following passage down (ok, most of it, anyway... I did elide quite a few bits) because it has so much in it that is very astute, although I think it could also be very easily problematic if taken too seriously as an over-generalization. All in all, though, it is an excellent explanation of how situational depression can turn into purely biochemical depression. Although I'm not sure I agree with her assessment (not included here) that the best way to save someone from this fate is to make fun of them until they learn to make fun of themselves!

Maestra: "'All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously...
For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass. Even an old tomato like me can recall how painful, scary, and disillusioning that realization was. So, there's a tendency, then, to slip into rage and self-pity, which, if indulged, can fester into bouts of depression...
"then depression can become a neurological habit....
"Gradually, our brain chemistry becomes conditioned to react to negative stimuli in a particular, predictable way...
"Once depression has become electronically integrated, it can be extremely difficult to philosophically or psychologically override it...'" 44-5

{1214-19}
Adult fiction from the "normal" shelves


** 1214) "Sum: 40 tales from the afterlives" by David Eagelman

Fun little book. Reminded me a bit of "Einstein's Dreams." Each mini-story covers a potential life after this one-- some thought-provoking, some absurd, some frightening, some wonderful. The first story was truly the best. A few made me laugh out loud. I was a bit surprised that, although many of them turned classical ideas on their heads and went out on quite a limb, most of the ones involving a religious afterlife of some kind seemed very much based in Judeo-Christian thinking.


*** 1215) "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult

Yes, I gave in a read a popular novel, and enjoyed it quite a bit more than I thought I would. The writing isn't brilliant, but it's compelling and evenly-paced. The story held a good mix of serious content, light moments, and heart-string-tugging. Around about 2/3 of the way in, I realized that there was no possible ending that could make me satisfied given what I knew so far, so I wasn't surprised when I found the end unsatisfactory. I'm curious to know how they changed it for the movie and whether I'll like that ending any better. I suspect I'll pick up another of her books when I want a light human-interest thriller.


*** 1216) "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" by Terry McMillan

No, I haven't seen the movie. I didn't love this as much as the other book of hers that I read, but I did still enjoy it quite a bit. Too much romance for me, and I found myself caring about whether it would work out far more than I wanted to! I guess the story sucked me in against my will. The descriptions were wonderfully vivid and I certainly found myself jealous of Stella (and for more than just the romance!).


*** 1217) "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck

Yes, yes, I should have read it years ago. Good story, and all the more enjoyable for being a lot damn shorter than "East of Eden". Sad and real and all those other things that are the main reason I avoid classics :)

In the intro, Steinbeck is quoted as writing "Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love". Not sure I agree, but it's definite food for thought.
 

*** 1218) "Hocus Pocus" by Kurt Vonnegut

I will never understand why I keep putting off reading the rest of Vonnegut's books. Even when one of them isn't my very favorite-- such as this one, with its complex and meandering plot-- I still enjoy his style immensely. And as always, I found a few disturbingly deep thoughts disguised as cynical witticisms:

"My own feeling is that if adultery is wickedness then so is food. Both make me feel so much better afterward." 120

"Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance." 225

"Beer, of course, is actually a depressant. But poor people will never stop hoping otherwise." 259


1219) "Enduring Love" by Ian McEwan

Book club book. Typical "literary fiction"-- disturbing, off-putting, depressing, and just plain weird. My favorite bit was the epilogue and that's only because it made the novel sound as though it were based on a true story, which would have been excellent indeed. Instead... I might recommend it to fans of Updike's "Rabbit" novels-- it has that same morbid tone of classical hubristic tragedy about it.

"No one could agree on anything. We lived in a mist of half-shared, unreliable perception, and our sense data came warped by a prism of desire and belief, which tilted our memories too... Pitiless objectivity, especially about ourselves, was always a doomed social strategy. We're descended from indignant, passionate tellers of half-truths, who, in order to convince others, simultaneously convinced themselves." 196 A good point indeed! Really, if the novel had focused just a bit more on the neurological factors at play, I might have liked it a lot better.

"I've never outgrown that feeling of mild pride, of acceptance, when children take your hand." 248 This line just struck me so poignantly. It's exactly how I felt, not long after, when I visited with conuly and her two adorable young nieces, who on several occasions reached out with absolute trust to put their tiny, soft hands in mine, making me feel proud and responsible and touched and protective and trusted all at once. It's really something of an overwhelming feeling when one isn't used to it.


Ok, enough for one entry.

{1184-6}

* 1184) "Love in the Time of the Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I confess, I might not have finished this one if it weren't a book-club assignment. It's very literary, yes, but dense and hard to follow. The storyline jumps around so much, flashing forward and back, that I suspect one would only get the full effect on the second reading. I found the main love story impossible to believe, although it was fun trying to imagine such an obsession and the world in which it could happen. In short, the book was beautiful, but not my type.


**** 1185) "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

This book, on the other hand, swept me off my feet. Tense, gothic, lush, and mysterious, this is a book about a book, a mystery within a mystery, a maze of a story all wrapped up in gorgeous writing like dark chocolate. Let me share some quotations with you:

"I wondered what on earth she saw in me that could make her want to befriend me, other than a pale reflection of herself, an echo of solitude and loss. In my schoolboy reveries, we were always two fugitives riding on the spine of a book, eager to escape into worlds of fiction and secondhand dreams." - Daniel, p29

" 'Army, Marriage, the Church, and Banking: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' " - Fermin, p98

" 'The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.' " -Nuria Monfort, 167

" 'Life on the streets is short. People look at you in disgust, even the ones who give you alms, but this is nothing compared to the revulsion you feel for yourself. It's like being trapped in a walking corpse, a corpse that's hungry, stinks, and refuses to die.' " - Fermin, 322

"Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell hat happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour what they left behind." -Nuria, 428

"Julian once told me that a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise." -Nuria, 444

"Does the  madman know he is mad? Or are the madmen those who insist on convincing him of his unreason in order to safeguard their own idea of reality?" -Nuria, 444

"[She] says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do so with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day." -Daniel, 484


*** 1186) "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes

Fascinating, touching, poignant. All that stuff great literature is supposed to be. I can't believe it took me this long to get around to the book, but I'm very glad someone finally talked me into it.

{1137-39} Adult novels.

** 1137) "A Day Late and A Dollar Short" by Terry McMillan

I confess, I've been eyeing this book for years on account of loving the title to death. But somehow, due in part to my reticence to read "real world" fiction, and in part to some disappointing experiences with other African-American fiction, I kept putting it off. Big mistake on my part.

This book swept me away. It opens from the viewpoint of a middle-aged woman wondering where her family has gone wrong-- her marriage has fallen apart and her grown children range from lay-about to overachiever; more importantly to her, none of them seem truly happy.

Then the book jumps from character to character, telling the stories of each family member in their own words (the author has a glorious talent for giving each character a distinctive "voice" without hitting you over the head with various dialects). And slowly, you gain a sense of each individual person and how they fit together as a family. Better still, they start to figure it out, too.

"Maybe /everybody/ is dysfunctional and God put us all in this mess so we can learn how to function.  To test us.  See what we can tolerate.  I don't know, but we don't seem to be doing such a hot job of it.  I guess we need to work harder at getting rid of that d-y-s part.  I just wish I had a clue where to start."  - Viola (probably one of my favorite quotes ever referencing the God I don't believe in)

"As a man, it makes you feel small when you know what your limitations are.  When you know you ain't lived up to your potential, when you ain't sure if you ever will." - Lewis

"I don't care what color she is.  But dumb is one color I don't like and have a hard time tolerating." - Paris (Thank you Paris!!)


1138) "The Screwtape Letters" by C. S. Lewis

I admit, it had its funny moments, and some excellent insights into human nature, but mostly this book just reminded me how happy I am not to be a Christian. Oh, for those of you who don't know, this book consists of the "advice" from a senior demon to a junior one on how to corrupt a man.

"...[a man] can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him..."

"In civilised life domestic hatred usually expresses itself by saying things which would appear quite harmless on paper (the /words/ are not offensive) but in such a voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the face."

"In discussing any joint action, it becomes obligatory that A should argue in favor of B's supposed wishes and against his own, while B does the opposite. It is often impossible to find out either party's real wishes; with luck, they end by doing something that neither wants, while each feels a glow of self-righteousness... and a secret grudge against the other..." Oh dear god, that's my family in a nutshell.

"the Present is the point at which time touches eternity."

"Cowardice, alone of all vices, is purely painful-- horrible to anticipate, horrible to feel, horrible to remember; Hatred has its pleasures. It is therefore often the /compensation/ by which a frightened man reimburses himself for the miseries of Fear."


** 1139) "Cast in Shadow" by Michelle Sagara

Weirdly enough, I can't bring anything about this book to mind right now... except that it was a fantasy novel and I couldn't put it down. I don't think I've been so intensely into a fantasy novel since "Poison Study"... so why can't I bring the plot to mind? Can't wait to read the next one, though.

"Silences were barbed in unexpected ways; with words, you generally knew where the traps were." (p 202)

" 'History is our guide, it is not our friend. It is a passing stranger, one which shadows legend, sprinkling it with seeds of truth.' " -Tiamaris (p 483)