A Universal History of Iniquity by Jorge Luis Borges

Borges via

Reviewed by Susanna Allred

Published: 1935

It's about: Borges appropriates and tweeks lives of historical criminals--Chinese pirates, Old West gunslingers, New York street toughs--to explore paradox. Each entry into this collection masquerades as a truthful historical narrative; however, Borges liberally diverges from his source material, essentially turning factual events and people into props through which to set up elaborate philosophical ironies and paradoxes. For example, the protagonist of the first story in the collection, "The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell", is a bloodthirsty and pious con man who induces enslaved African Americans to run away with his band of thieves, promising that if they allow him to sell them back into slavery, only to "steal" them away again, they will eventually be escorted North to freedom. Every time, of course, Morell eventually kills his victim when he begins to suspect the true nature of his "Redeemer." Eventually, one of Morell's confederates denounces his scheme to the authorities. Morell, ironically, believes his only hope of salvation lies in fomenting an insurrection among those slaves who still believe rumors of his benevolence--essentially taking on sincerely the role he had only maliciously affected before. The greater irony however, is that rich possibilities afforded by the potential turn of events are thwarted when Morell himself is robbed and killed by a petty thief who does not recognize him.

Part of the richness of A Universal History of Iniquity stems from Borges' ability to weave his dense, darkly humorous paradoxes into genres that tend to be consigned to the pulpy end of the high-low cultural divide. Borges sets his short stories into contexts modeled after Westerns, crime stories, and orientalizing adventure tales. His nominally historical characters participate in the theft, murder, and warfare endemic to these genres, but remain essentially flat characters who exist to be irony incarnate. One of the most intriguing stories, "Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv" purports to be the tale of a prophet who rises up in the Middle East in the 8th century to spearhead the meteoric rise of a blasphemous religion. Claiming that communion with God had made his face too brilliant for mortals to look upon, Hakim goes about imposing his religion through warfare while veiled, promising that men will be able to look on his face when they have accepted the truth. Hakim's truth is typically Borgesian.

The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it. Revulsion, disgust, is the fundamental virtue, and two rules of conduct (between which the Prophet left men free to choose) lead us to it; abstinence and utter licentiousness--the indulgence of the flesh or the chastening of it.

This being a collection of tales about violence and deceit, Hakim's charade is spoiled when one concubines lets slip that his supposedly glorified body is, in fact, riddled with leprosy. The suggestion, seemingly, is that an entire religion of degradation and heresy had sprung up to justify one man's physical corruption.

I thought: The entire collection boasts similarly clever, circuitous ironies that can be revisited endlessly. While the tales are all philosophically dense, they contain enough swashbuckling adventure to sustain interest in casual readers as well. The tone of scholarly historicity is a playful contrast to to the elaborately constructed labyrinths of plot twists that Borges builds into each story. The one entry into the collection that wears less well is "Man on Pink Corner", Borges' attempt to write a wholly fictional crime store that pivots around a knife fight between two Argentine street toughs. While exotic backdrops are a favorite for Borges, the setting and dialogue feel oddly forced or stilted in this attempt, as if Borges still needed to lean heavily on specific historical and literary texts in order to create lively literature of his own at this point.

While Borges eventually moved away from drawing so explicitly on other historical and literary sources (though his writing always remained famously inter-textual; many of his stories are literally books about books), the edition of A Universal History of Iniquity I read, which is part of Penguin Classics Collected Fictions, a complete anthology of Borges' short stories, contains helpful footnotes to each story. The footnotes are most enlightening and intriguing when highlighting Borges' divergence from his source material. For example, they confirm the existence of an actual set of "Rules for Pirates" in a book Borges cites in "The Widow Ching--Pirate" but the footnotes also reveal that Borges has (perhaps deliberately) appropriated and changed several other minor details of the story for apparently no reason. None of this really detracts from the stories themselves; rather, it adds to their enigmatic character.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf or Rubbish Bin? On the shelf. 

Reading Recommendations: An interesting discussion of Borges the man and his propensity for certain themes.

Titus Andronicus

Possible illustration of Titus Andronicus

Reviewed by Susanna Allred

Published:1588-1593?

It's about: Titus Andronicus, a Roman general, and Tamora, wife of the Roman emperor engage in a bloody, bitter feud. Their mutual enmity begins when Titus conquers Tamora's tribe of Goths, takes her family captive, and sacrifices one of her sons to avenge the deaths in battle of his own sons. Tamora feigns reconciliation with Titus and marries the Roman emperor, Saturninus. With the assistance of her Moorish lover, Aaron, she engineers gory, violent revenge against Titus' family. The ensuing cycle of violence far outstrips other Shakespearean bloodbaths in graphic intensity. Where Hamlet featured stabbings, accidental and duelling-related; poisoning, and off-stage drowning; Titus Andronicus proudly makes human sacrifice, dismemberment, maiming, cannibalism, rape, beheading, what can only be described as honor killing, and a final, uniquely vindictive execution central plot points.

I thought: The violence in Titus Andronicus is so sensational that this play has traditionally been the least critically-regarded of Shakespeare's. The critic Gerald Massey famously excoriated it as "a perfect slaughter-house...it reeks of blood, it smells of blood, we almost feel that we have handled blood." Other critics have defensively tried to claim that it isn't Shakespeare's at all, so graphically over-the-top is the violence. Current  consensus holds that Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare's, but an early, unrefined effort in the mode of Renaissance-era revenge plays.

The play's most intriguing dimension is its attempt to personify pure evil. While Tamora and Titus begin their violent rampage as bereaved parents, Aaron, Tamora's lover, gleefully lends his manipulative genius to her campaign with no other motive than his own sadism. In one particularly illustrative scene, Aaron overhears Tamora's sons Demetrius and Chiron fighting over the right to romantically pursue Titus' daughter, Lavinia. Aaron's ingenious solution to the conundrum is to encourage the young men to take turns raping Lavinia, then cut out her tongue and cut off her hands so that she can neither speak nor write the names of her attackers. Unlike most of Shakespeare's other villains, who are compelling in part because their motivations are innate to human experience (such as Claudius' ambition or Iago's jealousy), Aaron's evil is so unmoderated that it actually becomes rather enigmatic. When Aaron is asked if he is not sorry for his many evil deeds, he retorts "Ay, that I had not done a thousand more." At his execution, he exclaims

I am no baby, I, that with base prayers 
I should repent the evils I have done: 
Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
Would I perform, if I might have my will;
If one good deed in all my life I did, 
I do repent it from my very soul. 

This actually has the odd effect of making Aaron seem rather modern as a character type. Like the serial killers, sadists, and psychopaths who haunt contemporary film, television, and literature, Aaron is compelling because he is alien. Murdering to avenge one's dead child is ghastly but comprehensible. But, like Hannibal Lecter or Joffrey Baratheon, Aaron engineers suffering simply because he is compelled to. He hungers for cruelty in a way that normal humans hunger for love.

Unfortunately, Shakespeare's foray into literary psychopathy goes flat when he uses Aaron's blackness to characterize him as evil. While associating darker skin color with evil certainly isn't Shakespeare's innovation, he uses a tired trope in a ham-handed and pointless way. When Aaron brags that his evil makes him "like a black dog" it feels more like a stupid pun than clever symbolism. I think this actually makes Titus Andronicus valuable as a metric for Shakespeare's development as a writer. Othello, a deservedly more popular play, also makes use of the association of dark skin with evil, but with a much more nuanced understanding of the way such stereotypes might pervert a good man to do evil. Othello's rival Iago plays on Othello's fear that his skin color makes him repulsive to Desdemona to manipulate him into murdering her in a jealous rage. Othello is a man hounded by a stereotype; Aaron might well be the stereotype hounding him.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf or Rubbish Bin? In-between. 

Reading Recommendations: Nick Schifrin studied American motivations for war in the Middle East through Titus Andronicus in this essay.

Warnings: Rape, murder, cannibalism, illegitimate births, mutilation, dismemberment, beheading, stabbing, human sacrifice.

Favorite excerpts:

Tis true; the raven doth not hatch a lark:
Yet have I heard,--O, could I find it now!--
The lion moved with pity did endure 
To have his princely paws pared all away:
Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,
The whilst their own birds famish in their nests:
O, be to me, though they hard heart say no, 
Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!

Suttree by Cormac McCarthy

 

via

 Reviewed by Susanna Allred

Published: 1979

It's about: Cornelius Suttree, known to friends and his estranged family as "Buddy", has abandoned a life of prosperity and prominence to live among the riff-raff that collect along the shores of the Tennessee River during the mid-twentieth century. By day, he ekes out a living selling what fish he can catch. He passes his nights in mooonshine-soaked carousing, immersing himself in the hedonistic pleasures of his camaraderie with river's hookers and small-time criminals. Yet, even as he periodically loses himself in grotesque adventuring, Suttree's adaptation to life on the river is never quite complete or natural.

In contrast to the underclass crooks and prostitutes with whom he mingles, Suttree is a born philosopher and a keen observer of both human character and the sublime hideousness of the forsaken waterfront he frequents. His life has been darkened by death and his exit from social prominence was tinged with shame. Haunted by the stillbirth of his twin brother, and reluctant to examine his sudden abandonment of his wife, son, and mother, Suttree frequently protests to himself that life--both the work of building up a family, a career, and a community; as well as life in an essential sense--is inherently without meaning.

I thought: Suttree matches its anti-hero's aimless existentialism with a sprawling, episodic structure that never builds up to a definitive climax. McCarthy alternates lovely, dense descriptions of the physical filth and amoral, grotesque characters dotting the Tennessee River's shores. Like Suttree himself, McCarthy never suggests any sharply defined philosophical interpretation to the events of the novel, save to draw out a certain grace and beauty in the polluted river and the half-wild misfits who collect around it.

Suttree, by nature of its setting, heavily descriptive, virtuoso prose style; and deft employment of dark comedy fits in more closely (in some respects) with the works of Southern writers such as Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner than with McCarthy's better-known Western novels. McCarthy excels within the  vein of the Southern Gothic without being overshadowed by his predecessors. He makes his mark, in part by his exceedingly experimental approach to diction and punctuation, and by writing scenes of decay or degradation in prose that is at once elegant, heavy and voluminous.

A row of bottles gone to the wall for stoning lay in brown and green and crystal ruin down a sunlit corridor and one upright severed cone of yellow glass rose from the paving like a flame. Past these gnarled ashcans at the alley's mouth with their crusted rims and tilted gaping maws in and out of which soiled dogs go night and day. An iron stairwell railing shapeless with birdlime like something brought from the sea and small flowers along a wall reared from the fissured stone. 

What connects Suttree with the The Border Trilogy or No Country for Old Men  (besides McCarthy's preference for experimental prose), is its protagonist's paradoxically aloof, yet romantic nature. The novel is mostly told through his point of view, but the audience is allowed to glean few hints about Suttree's past life, or to what degree he truly sympathizes with the carnality of his new associates. Even in the throes of a love affair or in the deepest reaches Tennessee's backwoods, Suttree maintains a persona of cool detachment. For all this, Suttree is clearly enthralled by the rich chaos of life on the river. In one of the most poignant passages Suttree observes in the night sky

A sole star to the north pale and constant, the old wanderer's beacon burning like a molten spike that tethered fast the Small Bear to the turning firmament. He closed his eyes and opened them and looked again. He was struck by the fidelity of this earth he inhabited and he bore it sudden love.

This scene is bookended by a vivid description of an illicit encounter between Suttree and his young lover, Wanda and Suttree's abrupt, brutal attempt to end his affair with her. His appreciation of the North Star is made especially ironic in light of his own inconstancy and by Wanda's unexpected death in a landslide a few pages later. This darkly ironic contrast between the human desire to impose consistency and personhood upon nature with the nature's unconscious cruelty is vintage McCarthy, and a draws a thematic line between Suttree and McCarthy's more popular later works. For fans of either Southern Gothic or McCarthy, this novel is essential reading.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Warnings: Poetically gritty sex and drinking.

What I'm reading next: Titus Andronicus

If on a winter's night a traveler bY Italo Calvino

via

Reviewed by Susanna Allred

Published:1979 in Italian, 1981 in English

It's about: If on a winter's night a traveler is not a novel, but rather, fragments of many novels. The fragments are interspersed in alternating chapters with unifying thread about two hypothetical readers attempting to gather together and read the complete forms of the fragmented novels. However, the two readers, while succumbing to an obligatory romantic attraction, find themselves enmeshed in a byzantine web of conspiracies, totalitarian governments, fraud, dead languages, deceptive translators, and disorderly publishing houses.

The style is as winkingly playful as the plot. Calvino narrates the unifying thread in the second person singular; in other words "you" are the protagonist of If on a winter's night a traveler. Furthermore, the fragments of other novels are all written in widely varying genres, settings, and voices, though they are thematically linked (love triangles, for example, recur). These two characteristics, the unusual narrative voice and the array of novelistic styles are key to Calvino's major project in If on a winter's night a traveler, exploring how readers experience literature and why literature is written, given that so much of retreads similar themes and types.

I thought: This is a clever, witty book that clearly draws on Calvino's wide and deep knowledge of world literature while adopting a elusive literary style. The unifying thread of the two increasingly frustrated readers gradually ramps up absurdity in a uniquely post-modern style. As "you" draw closer to the end of "your" odyssey to scrape together the fragments of novels, "you" meet a seemingly-friendly ally in a chaotic dictatorship who tells "you"

I'm an infiltrator, a real revolutionary infiltrated into the ranks of the false revolutionaries. But to avoid being discovered, I have to pretend to be a counterrevolutionary infiltrated among the true revolutionaries. And, in fact, I am, inasmuch as I take orders from the police; but not from the real ones, because I report to the revolutionaries infiltrated among the counterrevolutionary infiltrators."

The fragmented novels themselves fall recognizably into distinct genres, among them the pastoral novel, the thriller, and the war novel. However, each novel seems to be telling a strikingly similar story, even though each one was supposedly written in a time and place disparate from the others. To be specific, each fragment includes a complex psychological drama among one or more erotically-charged love triangles. This extends to the unifying frame narrative as well, as "you" are partnered with a fellow female reader, Ludmilla, who has a sister, Lotaria, who is both antagonistic and attractive to "you.

The novel requires patience, attention, and perspicuity to follow. Being a post-modern novel, it doesn't exactly give up its meaning easily. Calvino does not argue vehemently for a single philosophical purpose driving the composition of literature, rather he suggests competing hypotheses through competing narrative voices. When "you" finally reach the library where all the desired books are supposedly held, you encounter, not books, but readers who, one-by-one parrot popular theories on "why we read."

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations: Don Quixote is the most obvious literary antecedent to If on a winter's night a traveler, but it's well-worth reading or re-reading.

Warnings: Some sexuality.

Favorite excerpts:

In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the this barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. 

What I'm reading next:

The Last Man by Mary Shelley

 

Mary Shelley, via

Reviewed by Susanna

Published: 1826

It's about: The year is 2096. In the past few decades, England has retired the monarchy in favor of a republican government, Greece has reconquered Constantinople, and men have begun to travel long distances by hot air balloon. Now, however, plague ravages the globe, upending law and order, breaking down social barriers, and giving rise to a deadly messianic cult.

The end of the world is observed by Lionel Verney, an English historian who, by accident of fortune, is both immune to the plague and uniquely placed to document its progress. Verney's account begins as an autobiography: he spends the first third of the novel relating his and his sister Perdita's impoverished youth as orphans in the rugged countryside, his eventual friendship with the former Crown Prince of England, Adrian Windsor (who paradoxically cherishes republican beliefs); his courtship of Adrian's vivacious sister Idris; and Perdita's marriage to the brooding, tempestuous Lord Raymond.

The pastoral romance of the first third takes an abrupt, Gothic turn when a seemingly-abandoned ship drifts into an English harbor. Its lone surviving crew member lives only long enough to spread a deadly, voracious contagion to London. As England's population rapidly dies off, Adrian attempts to stave off chaos and lead the few survivors to safety across the English Channel, only to encounter warfare, accident, and further sickness.

I thought: Mary Shelley is better known for Frankenstein, but The Last Man is her lost masterpiece. At the time of its publication in 1826, the possibility of humanity's extinction was considered grotesque and almost offensive. Consequently, the novel languished in obscurity for over a century. It was only after the possibility of a nuclear holocaust was realized in the mid-twentieth century that critics began to revisit The Last Man and recognize its innovative and prescient nature. Specifically, Shelley is the first major writer to treat the theme of apocalypse as a primarily secular, scientific event, and to thoroughly explore is social repercussions. Novels like The Walking Dead and The Road, which prominently feature dwindling bands of survivors attempting to preserve some semblance of morality and civilization in the face of a dubious future, can claim The Last Man in their literary ancestry.

Nevertheless, The Last Man is a highly unique work that differs significantly from its modern descendants. Unlike the emotionally spartan works of fellow post-apocalyptic writers Cormac McCarthy, George Orwell, and Ray Bradbury; Shelley is an unabashedly emotive writer. She ably demonstrates her place in the pantheon of Romantic writers with numerous, rapturously beautiful descriptions of pastoral abundance and rugged wilderness. She is also adept at turning debates on moral philosophy between her characters into riveting, poetic exploration of psychology. These two qualities are united in Shelley's exploration of the psychological differences between Raymond who believes that

Our virtues are the quick-sands, which shew themselves at calm and low water; but let the waves arise and the winds buffet them, and the poor devil whose hope was in their durability finds them sink from under him.

While Adrian muses that

The choice is with us; let us will it, and our habitation becomes a paradise. For the will of man is omnipotent, blunting the arrows of death, soothing the bed of disease, and wiping away the tears of agony.

Shelley's skill at crafting elaborate Gothic thrills only fully comes to the fore in the latter two thirds of the novel, as she expertly conjures up bizarre and unsettling images, increasing their intensity and frequency as the horrors of the plague ramp up. They foreshadow social chaos by disturbing the orderly progress of natural events. As the survivors cross the English Channel

three other suns, alike burning and brilliant, rushed from various quarters of the heavens toward the great orb; they whirled round it. The glare of light was intense to our dazzled eyes; the sun itself seemed to join in the dance, while the sea burned like a furnace, like all Vesuvius alight, with flowing lava beneath.   

Her ability to seamlessly combine political commentary, horror, romance, and nature writing makes for a unique, complex reading experience that readers return to repeatedly. Fans of Wuthering Heights, The Road, and Edgar Allan Poe should make this lost classic a priority. 

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf!

Reading Recommendations: The Wordsworth Classics edition has an engaging introduction and notes by Pamela Bickley and the Wikipedia entry contains a detailed plot summary and character list.

Warnings: None.

Favorite excerpts:

There were few books that we dared read; few, that did not cruelly deface the painting we bestowed on our solitude, by recalling combinations and emotions never more to be experienced by us. Metaphysical disquisitions; fiction, which wandering from all reality, lost itself in self-created errors; poets of times so far gone by, that to read of them was as to read of Atlantis and Utopia....

What I'm reading next: Angle of Repose

Review: Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar

Julio Cortazar, via

Reviewed by Susanna

Published: 1963 in Spanish, translated into English in 1966

It's about: Horacio Oliveira, a disaffected Argentine intellectual, wanders the streets of 1950s Paris, meeting occasionally with a group of beatniks and bohemians to sip mate, listen to jazz records, discuss modern art, and debate politics. He is accompanied by his uneducated mistress, La Maga, an aspiring singer and single mother to a baby boy she has fancifully named Rocamadour. Aside from La Maga, each member the group (which has dubbed itself the Serpentine Club) appears to exceptionally well-educated but exhibits little genuine pleasure in art and literature. The only real enjoyment they seem to derive from their meetings is in weaving intricate webs of allusions to esoteric artists and philosophers (Anacreon and Piet Mondrian among them) in which to entrap and mock the ignorant Oliveira's mistress, who has high ambitions for cultural sophistication. The group abruptly disbands when Rocamadour dies in the middle of one such gathering and La Maga, crushed by grief, disappears. Oliveira, heretofore cold and withdrawn towards his mistress, departs on a journey back to Argentina to search for her and gradually descends into madness.   

I thought: Plot summary feels almost entirely beside the point when discussing Hopscotch because the novel's "point," so to speak, is communicated more through its experimental style than its story. Some critics have classed Hopscotch as a sort of anti-novel for its flgrant abandonment of traditional structures and language. Case-in-point, Cortazar prefaces the book with this curious bit of advice on the possible sequences of chapters in which readers can approach the novel:

In its own way, this book consists of many books, but two books above all.

The first can be read in a normal fashion and it ends with Chapter 56, at the close of which there are three garish little stars which stand for the words The End. Consequently, the reader may ignore what follows with a clean conscience.

The second should be read by beginning with Chapter 73 and then following the sequence indicated at the end of each chapter.

Cortazar's other innovations on the traditional novel's conventions leave the reader disoriented and floating in a playfully dissonant wash of citations, dialogue, allusions, references, and sudden shifts in narrative voice. For example, Chapter 34 tells two stories, one is the personal reminiscences of a retired businessman, and the other is Oliveira's stream-of-conscience mourning for his lost mistress. The catch is that Cortazar alternates one line on the page of the first story with one line of the other until the end of the chapter. Individual chapters appear that have, superficially at least, nothing to do with the plot of the novel. Many of them, labeled Morelliana are the philosophical musings of a fictional literary critic and writer named Morelli. The ninety-nine expendable chapters at the end of the first book, skip unpredictably among the Serpentine Club's debates, Oliveira's thoughts as he settles into the mental institution, and quotations from various post-modern writers, presented without further explanation. At various points, Cortazar invents new spellings for words, invents new words entirely, or abruptly slips into a new language.

So, if this deliberately difficult style communicates the purpose of Hopscotch more than the plot, what is the purpose? Hopscotch is the sort of novel that, like Ulysses, uses the author's encyclopedic knowledge of arts and letters to evade easy summation. But one persistently recurring theme is finding authenticity in a world where passions and desires are articulated through cliche. Oliveira's suspicions of his authenticity run so deeply that at the moment he realizes Rocamadour has died, he coolly asks himself "why turn on the light and shout if it won't do any good?" and curses himself for being "an actor", rather than raising the alarm. The desire for authenticity underlines each emotionally void meeting of the Serpentine Club, just as it drives La Maga's search for intellectual fulfillment. And it is evident in Cortazar's experimental style. Every departure from traditiona is meant to expose the artificiality of the conventional novel and challenge the reader's assumptions of how a novel ought to be composed and why they read.

All that said, it's my opinion that Hopscotch is not the kind of book one reads for pleasure, at least not on the first attempt (I honestly can't say that I enjoyed it). It takes expansive knowledge of the art and literature of, and influential to the post-modern era to grasp the majority of Cortazar's references. At five hundred and sixty-four pages, the purposefully difficult style will try the patience of even the most die-hard wannabe-beatnik. For reasons I can appreciate without necessarily enjoying the book, Hopscotch has been hailed as one of the most important twentieth -century novels, and for professional students of literature, it undoubtedly is. However, there are many other brilliant and innovative books that open themselves up to readers more willingly. 

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf. 

Reading Recommendations: Browse the Wikipedia entry on Hopscotch; it gives a thorough outline of the novel's themes, characters, and plot.

Warnings: Some veiled descriptions of sex and some swearing.   

Favorite excerpts:

I swallow my soup. Then, in the midest of what I am reading, I think: The soup is in me, I have it in this pouch which I will never see, my stomach." I feel with two fingers and I touch the mass, the motion of the food there inside. And I am this, a bag with food inside of it.

Then the soul is born: "No, I am not that."
No that (let's be honest for once)
yes, I am that. With a very pretty means of excape for the use of the finicky: "I am also that." Or just a step up: "I am in that."

What I'm reading next: The Last Man, by Mary Shelley.

Review: Where Things Come Back

Arkansas town, via

Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2011

It's about:  Seventeen-year-old Cullen Witter is having an eventful Summer.  First his cousin dies of an overdose.  Then an alleged siting of a supposedly-extinct woodpecker brings a flurry of activity to his small town in Arkansas.  Cullen even has a few shots at romantic relationships.  But everything seems pretty unimportant after Cullen's sensitive, kind-hearted younger brother disappears.

Meanwhile, in Africa, an 18-year-old missionary named Benton struggles with finding his true purpose.  His ideas and choices eventually have intense and unintended effects upon his philosophy-major roommate.

(And, of course, the two seemingly unrelated stories do come together in the end.)

I thought:  I really really liked this book.  Things started off right with a pretty title page and, on the back, lyrics credits given to Sufjan Stevens and TV on the Radio.  Plus I generally do love "Coming-of-Age" (ugh, that term!  Let's come up with a better one. Ideas?)  novels about outsider teens, especially with quirky or absurd elements.  Plus I award extra points for being set in the South.

So I guess Where Things Come Back and I were just meant to love each other.  Cullen won me over early with his earnestness and his attempts at cynicism and his love for his family.  His sections of the book really truly read like a smart teenager's writing: there are clichés here and there and attempts at originality that sometimes do and sometimes don't work.  He seems real and sincere, and because his story is alternated with the secondary story, he doesn't become tiresome.  John Corey Whaley has a degree in secondary English education; he probably graded plenty of essays that helped inspire a legit-sounding high schooler's style.

There are a lot of feelings in this book, but they worked well for me because Cullen is not an overemotional character and because he and everyone in the book seemed sincere.  Sincerity: it's a powerful thing.  I think that's what made me like Where Things Come Back.  The more I think about it the more sorry I am that it's over, and the more likely I am to read it again someday.  I hope John Corey Whaley will write more.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf for sure.

Reading Recommendations:  It's a quick, engaging read- pick it up when you have time to finish it in a few long sittings.  Don't stretch it out over a few weeks.

Warnings:  A fair number of swears and definitely some heavy themes.  My edition says it's for ages 14 and up, and I'd second that.

Favorite excerpts:  “We didn’t let them help us because we needed it, we let them help us because inside of humans is this thing, this unnamed need to feel as if we are useful in the world. To feel as if we have something significant to contribute. So, old ladies, make your casseroles and set them on doorsteps. And old men, grill your burgers and give them to teenagers with cynical worldviews. The world can’t be satisfied, but that need to fix it all can.”

“Being seventeen and bored in a small town, I like to pretend sometimes that I’m a pessimist. This is the way it is and nothing can sway me from that. Life sucks most of the time. Everything is bullshit. High school sucks. You can go to school, work for fifty years, then you die. Only I can’t seem to keep that up for too long before my natural urge to idealize goes into effect. I can’t seem to be a pessimist long enough to overlook the possibility of things being overwhelmingly good.”

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What I'm reading next:  Eight Pieces of Empire by Lawrence Scott Sheets

Audiobook Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After by

still from the book trailer

Reviewed by Christina
[Read Megan's review of the print version here.]

Published: 2011

It's about: The story opens after Lizzie and Darcy have been married for several years.  Elizabeth can't seem to muster up much excitement about life now that she is A Gentleman's Wife; social mores bar married ladies from doing battle with Zed-words.  Just a few minutes into the book, a child dreadful attacks and bites Mr. Darcy and his wife enters into a humiliating plot to save him.  The mastermind behind said plot is Lizzie's formidable foe, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.  Can Elizabeth secure a cure for the Zombie Plague before it's too late?

I thought:  As you may know from my reviews of the original P&P&Z and its prequel, Dawn of the Dreadfuls, Dreadfully Ever After is the third and final book in the zombie mashup trilogy.  It's written by the same author of Dawn, not the same as the originator of the series, Seth Grahame-Smith, who first inserted monsters into Jane Austen's British regency-era world.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked everything about Dreadfully Ever After far better than Steve Hockensmith's previous contribution.  Honestly, everything is better in Dreadfully as compared with Dawn: pacing and plotting, character development, general originality, humor.  I just really liked this audiobook.  It kept my attention through many a mile of running; it didn't sag or become tiresome.  I even laughed!  While running!  That is quite an achievement, Mr. Hockensmith.

If you are a big P&P fan, I think I'd recommend the zombie sequel less for its undead action and more for its development of two previously minor characters:  Kitty and Mary Bennet.  Both are in their early twenties in this story, likely on their way to spinsterdom (their mother has given up matchmaking- she needs caretakers in her old age, not more married daughters abandoning her). But Kitty and Mary contribute at least as much to Darcy's rescue as Elizabeth does, and they become full-on people.  Their character trajectories made sense and amused me, even if I doubt they are very similar to anything Jane Austen herself would have devised.

Katherine Kellgren, the reader, does a fabulous job as ever.  She is hilarious.  There is one character with an extremely exaggerated Scottish brogue, and his endlessly rolled r's did get on my nerves after a while.  But not terribly so; I enjoyed mentally casting King Fergus as him, and imagining his son looking something like a dandified Young Macintosh.  Good times.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf!

Reading Recommendations:  Read them in order for the best experience.  Even though I didn't love the first P&P&Z installment, I still think most readers would like the trilogy best in its entirety.

Warnings:  Zombie gore.

What I'm listening to next:  Matched by Ally Condie

Review: Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

Bishop Home, via

Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2003

It's about:  Rachel Kalama is a happy seven-year-old girl living in Honolulu at the end of the 19th century.  But then her mother discovers a numb red sore on Rachel's leg, and there's only so long her family can keep it a secret: their little girl has leprosy, a feared, poorly understood, and shameful disease for which there was no cure or effective treatment.  Soon Rachel is removed from her family and shipped off to Kalaupapa, a leper colony on the island of Moloka'i.

On Moloka'i, Rachel grows up and finds life, love, and family (alongside a heaping dose of tragedy) among her fellow exiles and their caretakers.  Her life coincides with an eventful period in Hawaii's history; she sees the overthrow of the monarchy, the introduction and boom of tourism, WWII and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and eventual statehood.  Rachel and the islanders get to experience a lot of twentieth-century inventions for the first time: recorded music, moving pictures, airplanes.  I loved reading about people's introductions to these and other pieces of modern life.

I thought: This is exactly the kind of novel I love: rich with well-researched historical and cultural details, a tragic and dramatic life story with memorable, complex characters.  It even has a medical element to boot!  There aren't really heroes and villains, just people struggling along with what they have and making choices based on their selves and their circumstances.  I should probably mention that I lived in Hawaii when I was in high school, and so the setting and trappings of Moloka'i have some special significance for me.  I loved that Brennert included lots of Hawaiian words, culture, and mythology.  Despite the author being haole, the book feels Hawaiian.

I also thought Alan Brennert did a decent job writing from a woman's perspective.  I forgot, sometimes, that Rachel was written by a man, and you really can't say that about some male authors.  My only complaint in that department is that all the female characters in Moloka'i seem unusually willing to part with their clothes, including disfigured teens who were raised in a convent and even some of the nuns!  This isn't the first time I've read a book by a male author that has a bunch of female characters casually getting naked regularly.  The tendency amuses me.

While I'm in complaint mode, I do have a few other things to mention.  Brennert's style is smooth and easy to read, but there is some slight cheesiness now and again.  I can tell that he is a screenwriter and OH how I wish some studio would pick up Moloka'i and make it into a miniseries.  Brennert's prose isn't high art, but it is capable enough to bring out his real strengths: storytelling and character development.   I really would have appreciated a more detailed map of Moloka'i than the one printed in the front of the book, and a glossary of Hawaiian terms and some pronunciation guidelines would have been nice.  My memories from 11th grade Modern History of Hawaii class are pretty fuzzy and I had to turn to google for clarifications.

Moloka'i may not be timeless great literature, but it's a full, beautiful story grounded in fact, with lots of Big Ideas to chew on: freedom and exile, forced exile/imprisonment and self-exile, parent-child relationships within and without biological ties, faith in the face of tragedy.  This book is going to stick with me, and it was just the thing to get me out of my post-Anna Karenina rut.  You can bet I'll be reading Alan Brennert's other Hawaii book, Honolulu.  

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf!

Kalaupapa today, via
(note the pali, cliffs that isolated the
settlement from the rest of the island)

Reading Recommendations:  I read this at a breakneck pace, and I'm not sure whether I read it so fast because I loved it or I loved it because I read it so fast.  But either way, I'd recommend reading this at a time when you can really sink into it and read a hundred pages or so each day.  Be prepared to cry, though; I am not generally a weepy reader but this book got me going more than once.

(And if you like this setting, be sure to check out the movie Princess Kaiulani.)

Warnings: A little fairly-descriptive sex, one brief but graphic scene of domestic violence, some swears.

Favorite excerpts:  "Grief and anger doesn't shock me." Catherine paused.  "Rachel, do you remember the day at the convent when we saw the old biplane?  Remember what I said?"
Rachel laughed without amusement.  "I don't even remember what I said."
"'Who can doubt the presence of God in the sight of men whom he has given wings.' I recall that so precisely because I've had time to consider my error."  She smiled. "God didn't give man wings; He gave him the brain and the spirit to give himself wings.  Just as He gave us the capacity to laugh when we hurt, or to struggle on when we feel like giving up.
"I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, of death... is the true measure of the Divine within us.  Some, like Crossen, choose to do harm to themselves and others.  Others, like Kenji, bear up under their pain and help others to bear it.
"I used to wonder, why did God give children leprosy?  Now I believe: God doesn't give anyone leprosy.  He gives us, if we choose to use it, the spirit to live with leprosy, and with the imminence of death.  Because it is in our own mortality that we are most Divine."

What I'm reading next:  The Other Side of Normal by Jordan Smoller

Review: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg

Chestnut Lodge, the institution where INPYaRG was unofficially set

Reviewed by Christina

Published: 1964

It's about:  "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is a semi-autobiographical account of a teenage girl's three-year battle with schizophrenia. Deborah Blau, bright and artistically talented, has created a make-believe world, the Kingdom of Yr, as a form of defense from a confusing, frightening reality. When Deborah was five, she underwent surgery to remove a tumor in her urethra, a traumatic experience that involved a great deal of physical pain and shame. During her childhood, Deborah suffered frequent abuse from her anti-Semitic peers and neighbors. When Deborah first created Yr, it was a beautiful, comforting haven, but over time the gods of Yr became tyrannical dictators who controlled Deborah's every word and action." (wikipedia)

I thought:  I'm not sure why I've always pegged this book as a sensationalized account of mental illness written to titillate the masses.  Maybe that first impression is the fault of the cover of the paperback copy I snatched from a beach house a couple of years ago.  I mean, look at it.  It does sort of seem to say "misery porn," right?

It's not that way.  It's an honest, well-rounded, memoirish novel.  It's more nuanced and introspective than I expected.  There is some real poetry in the language of Yr, and Deborah's attempts to translate it for her doctors mirrors the patient's struggle to communicate her world of psychosis.

But I can't say I loved it.  I'm still coming down off my Anna Karenina high, and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden was pretty much a rebound book.  I had a hard time getting into it, and I never really felt emotionally invested in the characters.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.  This is one of my favorite topics, and I'm pretty sure I would have liked it a lot better if I'd read it at a different time.  I don't have any legitimate complaints about it.

Reading Recommendations:  Don't read it right after Anna Karenina, I guess.

Warnings:  I can't really remember anything.  Maybe a swear or two and some vividly imagined violence.

Favorite excerpts:  “She now knew that the death she feared might not be a physical one, that it could be death of the will, the soul, the mind, the laws, and thus not death, but a perpetual dying.”

What I'm reading next:  The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love by Jill Conner Browne

Guest Review: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

Family in Cartagena, Colombia, c. 1930, via

Reviewed by Arminda!
Combine a dash of determination with a twist of opinionated, a heaping scoop of energy and mix vigorously, while slowly adding to this combination equal parts writer, actor, swing dancer, chef and mom. Fold in laughter, happiness, originality and a great book, and your concoction will resemble Arminda, whose passions are varied, but her focus to accomplish much never wains. Through her food blog www.yumveg.com she strives to make whole food, plant-based eating accessible to everyone, and when she just feels like rambling she dumps those thoughts onto www.allarminda.com, where it's all Arminda, all the time. Twitter handles for each, respectively, are @yumveg and @allarminda.

Published: 1988

It's about: Two young people, Florentino and Fermina, fall desperately in love with one another through letters they exchange and furtive glances they make at one another across the park, and eventually decide to marry. Their plans are thwarted by Fermina's father, and while she moves on with her life and marries another, the anguished Florentino channels his heartbreak into a lifelong obsession with other women, hundreds of other women, yet reserves his heart for Fermina. After the death of Fermina's husband, some fifty-one years later, Florentino declares his love again.

I thought: This book, and author, come highly recommended, and Love in the Time of Cholera is the winner of the Nobel Prize. What greater endorsement can you possibly have than that? If the criteria for winning this most-revered literary prize is to have "produced 'in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction, (source Wikipedia)'" then let's just say I thought the direction was kind of creepy. Young lover, desperate from his broken heart, turns obsessive stalker, turns womanizer, turns pedophile, all the while claiming a virgin heart for his one true love? And this is okay with everyone?

I want to be clear that I thought the writing was lyrically beautiful, and the character development was remarkable. I have rarely felt so connected with the inner feelings of two characters as I did with Florentino and Fermina, and the beautiful imagery and lives painted by Mr. Marquez's exceptional command of the English language. But can we fairly separate the characters from their actions from their thoughts from the plot from its message? To attempt to do so would be no different than when someone says they love a song for its beat, but pay no attention to its lyrics. Yet this book is heralded as one of the greatest love stories of all time.

I'll leave Newsweek's review of "A love story of astonishing power," to Newsweek, because I have a hard time celebrating, honoring and revering the "ideal direction" for which this novel has received literature's highest honor. I can't get on that band wagon.

Verdict: In Between - I'm really torn over the separation of music and lyrics. The writing is scrumptiously beautiful, but I don't endorse the behavior of the main character.

Reading Recommendations:  This book is heralded by many many people as one of the greatest ever written. It's an Oprah's Book Club selection, among other ringing endorsements. I'd love to know your thoughts if you've read it.

Warnings:  Well, there's LOTS of sex, sexual references, and even an affair with a child.

What I'm reading next: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Review: The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 2 by Joseph Gordon-Leavitt

via

Reviewed by Connie

Published: 2012

It's about: Christina and Ingrid reviewed volume 1 of The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories last year, a book that serves to prove that "the universe is not made up of atoms; it's made up of tiny stories." In these two volumes, actor Joseph Gordon-Leavitt "directs thousands of collaborators to tell tiny stories through words and art. With the help of the entire creative collective, Gordon-Levitt culls, edits, and curates the massive numbers of contributions into a finely tuned collection." Basically, it's a collaborative effort of poetic, one or two-sentence stories with corresponding artwork.

I thought: I thoroughly enjoyed this book -- more than Christina and Ingrid enjoyed the first. Although I never read volume 1, I'd say from the few selections I've seen from it that volume 2 far exceeds it.

Naturally, as a collaborative effort, some of the tiny stories are insightful, intriguing, or thought-provoking, while others fall flat or come across as desperately emo. But I'd say the former greatly outnumber the latter.

It would make a great coffee table book (or bathroom book... not that I keep mine in the bathroom. Hahem.)

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf

Reading Recommendations: If you are a fan of books such as PostSecret, you will likely enjoy this book.

Warnings: None

What I'm reading next: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

**I received a complimentary review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy, via

Reviewed by Christina 
(Pssst! Ingrid reviewed this waaaaaay back in the early days of tBB!  Check it out!)

Published: 1877

It's about: At surface level, this classic is the tragic tale of Anna Karenina's life and death.  Swept off her feet by dashing Alexei Vronsky, she abandons her dutiful family life and her place in society.  The world wasn't set up for a lasting relationship between them, though, and Anna struggles long and painfully to find a place for herself in it.  Her opposite, Konstantin Levin, is a fair-minded, moody, philosophical type.  He's trying to navigate his own more conventional relationships while also working out his ideas about government, agriculture, and religion.  Given that this is a masterpiece, we have plenty of subtle themes and brilliant metaphors to discover, as well as commentary about then-current Russian law, government, societal norms.  All the things you look for in Literature are here in spades.

Alas, my poor attempt at summary is falling short of this wonderful, beautiful novel.  So here's a much more snappy synopsis from the back cover of my movie tie-in edition:  "In their world frivolous liaisons are commonplace, but Anna and Vronsky's consuming passion makes them a target for scorn and leads to Anna's increasing isolation.  The heartbreaking trajectory of their relationship contrasts sharply with the colorful swirl of friends and family members who surround them, especially the newlyweds Kitty and Levin, who forge a touching bond as they struggle to make a life together.  Anna Karenina is a masterpiece not only because of the unforgettable woman at its core and the stark drama of her fate, but also because it explores and illuminates the deepest questions about how to live a fulfilled life."

I thought:  First a little background info, just for fun.  Remember how we had that Anna Karenina swag giveaway back in November?  Well, right around that time I was just the teensiest bit obsessed with the Anna Karenina trailer.  And I REALLY wanted to win that giveaway but I thought it probably wouldn't be ok to rig it in my behalf, seeing as the merch was really intended for the Blue Bookcase readers, not the writers.  So what did I do?  I found a bunch of other blogs that were doing the same giveaway and I entered them.  Kinda pathetic, right?  Only NOT PATHETIC AT ALL BECAUSE I WON ONE OF THEM.  Thank you, Evil Beet!

no.

SO.  That is the reason I read the edition I did, and I have a lot to say about it.  Namely: I wouldn't recommend it.  It's the Maude translation (not a particularly well respected one) and it has no introduction, no character list, no historical context, no author biographical information or timeline.  The footnotes are scanty, providing translations for all the in-text French but not the Latin, Russian, or German.  The Maudes over-anglicize Anna Karenina, changing all the characters' names to their English equivalents: just to name a few, Ekaterina becomes Catherine, Fyodor becomes Theodore, and (most absurdly) Alexei becomes Alexis.  Why retain the patronymics, then?  It's like they couldn't decide what level of Russianness they wanted to maintain.  All this Englishness is especially ironic given that a major theme explored by Tolstoy and his characters is the push-pull between European and Slavic tendencies in Russian culture.  (I guess I should admit that I personally am a bit of a purist here.  It took some willpower for me to not pretentiously put Lev rather than Leo in the title of this post.)

The Maudes continually use "tipsy" where all native English speakers would use "drunk," and translate "Congratulations" literally into "I congratulate you."  There were a bunch of silly, distracting little things like that.  Some of this might be in keeping with quaint 1910's translation fashions, but it's definitely not what I would have chosen if I were going out of my way to choose the best edition of Anna Karenina.  And, since I plan to read it again and again, I'm going to be looking for a better one.  (Recommendations?)

I hardly ever reread anything, but I will definitely read this book again, probably multiple times over the course of my  life.  I love it.  I love everything about it.  I love the fully-developed characters and their detailed inner monologues and their complex relationships with one another.  I love the setting (1870's Petersburg is so hot right now!) and Tolstoy/Levin's political/moral/legal philosophizing.  I love that this book highlights the societal double standards (still existing!) toward male and female adulterers.  So much of Anna Karenina still feels fresh and modern- philosophically, psychologically, politically, thematically, theologically.  Tolstoy's metaphors are subtle, svelte, original.  I can't help but compare Tolstoy with Victor Hugo since I read Les Misérables so recently, and I can firmly state now that I overwhelmingly prefer Russian Realism over French Romanticism.  (Assuming that both novels are representatives of their periods which, from what I understand, they are.)

Verdict: STICK IT ON THE SHELF.  But not this edition.

Reading Recommendations:  It's long.  Let yourself sink in.
About the movie:  I saw it before reading this.  Could I wait, after watching the trailer approximately eighty times in less than a month?  Of course not.  Anyway, I really liked it: it's visually stunning, has a great score, and Joe Wright (Atonement, Hanna, Pride and Prejudice) is one of my favorite directors.  But it doesn't hold a candle to the book.  Anna's actions make sooooo much more sense and her relationship with Vronsky is infinitely more complex and passionate in writing than on screen.  And Levin and Kitty are, like, a cutesy little side note in the movie- nothing like the book.  So yeah, definitely read it even if you've already seen the movie.  And read it first if you haven't seen it yet.

See?  Gorgeous.

Warnings:  I guess I can't write "I love everything about it" without a few disclaimers:  near the end of the book, there is some passing, casual antisemitism and one horribly racist line of dialogue.  Shoot, Tolstoy, why you gotta try and spoil a beautiful book?  :(  I'm just going to attribute those things to the flawed characters and not to the author himself.

Favorite excerpts:  "She was not only disturbed, but was beginning to be afraid of a new mental condition such as she had never before experienced.  She felt as if everything was being doubled in her soul, just as objects appear doubled to weary eyes.  Sometimes she could not tell what she feared and what she desired.  Whether she feared and desired what had been, or what would be, and what it was she desired she did not know."

"All that day she felt as if she were acting in a theatre with better actors than herself, and that her bad performance was spoiling the whole affair."

(And LOTS more.)

What I'm reading next:  True Medical Detective Stories by Clifton K. Meador

Audiobook Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith

(a still from the book trailer)

Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2010

It's about:  Dawn of the Dreadfuls is a prequel, taking place five years before Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  It opens with a funeral, attended by the Bennets, in which the dearly departed unexpectedly rises from his coffin, heralding a rebirth of the undead in Hertfordshire.  Mr. Bennet dispenses with the zombie; he knows what to do because he fought for the Royal Army during "The Troubles" (England's very first zombie uprising) twenty or so years before.  The interrupted funeral prompts him to hire a young martial artist named Master Hawksworth to train the Bennet sisters in "the deadly arts."  Just as the girls start to show promise as zombie-slayers, a regiment comes to town and takes up residence at Netherfield Park.  Together the Bennets and the soldiers try to protect the locals and the land from the ever increasing numbers of grave-fresh "Dreadfuls" until finally they are besieged in a hideously gory climax.

I thought:  As you might remember, I very much enjoyed listening to P&P&Z back around Halloween.  So I was happy to stay in the zombified Regency universe a little longer but I was curious about what differences I'd notice in Dawn of the Dreadfuls.  As we all know, Jane Austen didn't write a prequel to Pride and Prejudice so this is pretty much fanfic.  And it's not even written by the same author who came up with the original mashup idea.

Can you tell my expectations were a little on the lower end for this one?  And rightly so.  I didn't love it.  The characters seemed a little stiff outside the real P&P story.  The story itself lagged quite a bit, and the slightly more descriptive zombie violence didn't do anything to ramp it up.  I could take or leave most of the new (non-Austen) characters.  Everything just seemed kind of shallow in Dawn of the Dreadfuls.  But maybe I'm being too hard on it.  It is just a zombie novel after all.

Still, I loved loved loved the reader, Katherine Kellgren, just as much as I did in P&P&Z.  She is SO FUNNY, you guys.  So funny.  This story would have completely fallen flat with a less talented reader.  Despite my blah attitude toward Steve Hockensmith, I maybe have to check out the last installment of the trilogy just to keep Ms. Kellgren in my life.

Verdict: In Between.  If you NEED Austen-era zombies in your life, Dawn of the Dreadfuls is pretty fun.  But in general I think you could probably skip this one and go straight to Grahame-Smith's original parody, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Warnings:  Oh, you know.  Brains and severed body parts and stuff.  Zombie gore.

What I'm listening to next:  Maybe Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After, but I haven't decided for sure yet.

Review: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Reviewed by Christina

Published:  In French, 1862.  In an English translation by C.E. Wilbur later that same year.  I read a 2003 edition, edited and abridged by Laurence M. Porter.  (And if you care to read my musings about abridgments, here's a post.)

It's about:  You probably already know a little about this famous story, so I'm not going to put a ton of effort into summarizing The Brick.  Here's what the back cover says: "... Les Misérables tells the story of the peasant Jean Valjean- unjustly imprisoned, baffled by destiny, and hounded by his nemesis, the magnificently realized, ambiguously malevolent police detective Javert.  As Valjean struggles to redeem his past, we are thrust into the teeming underworld of Paris with all its poverty, ignorance, and suffering.  Just as cruel tyranny threatens to extinguish the last vestiges of hope, rebellion sweeps over the land like wildfire, igniting a vast struggle for the democratic ideal in France."
(A pretty decent summary, though I disagree about Javert's malevolence being ambiguous, and I'm not sure I'd call the June Rebellion vast or wildfire-like.)

I thought:  When Les Misérables was first published it met with a varied, often negative critical reception.  But it was immediately popular, and has been ever since.  Is it possible for me to agree with both the critics and the populace?  Because I think I do.  I agree with all the fans that it is a moving, masterfully plotted piece of high drama.  I love M. Hugo's social sensibility and human sympathy.  His passion for mercy and fairness shine throughout.  I really loved reading this book, and I'm so glad I did.  It's a great story, a vivid portrait of post-Napoleonic France, and an unforgettable piece of literature.
But ugh, the sentimentality! The manipulative melodramatic devices! The pervasively moralistic platitudes on every single page!  I get that these are accepted Romantic things, just like I get that the story's over-reliance on coincidences is supposed to imply God's hand in human life.  Romanticism just doesn't do a whole lot for me, personally, and that's ok.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf

Reading Recommendations:  I'd recommend reading it fairly quickly; you'll lose track of the chronology and characters if you take long pauses away from the story.  So it's a good one for a slow period in your life.  I've loved reading it during the holidays because it makes me appreciate things I usually take for granted, like shoes and democracy and not having the Thénardiers for parents.

Warnings: nothin' but the sadness

Favorite excerpts: "The future belongs still more to the heart than to the mind.  To love is the only thing which can occupy and fill up eternity.  The infinite requires the inexhaustible."

"To love or to have loved, that is enough.  Ask nothing further.  There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.  To love is a consummation."

"Not being heard is no reason for silence."

“Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.”

What I'm reading next:  Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Review: Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman, illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Reviewed by Christina
[I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.]

Published: 1984

It's about: Most of us are fairly familiar with the basic story of the ballet: little girl Clara gets a Nutcracker for Christmas, then has an elaborate dream in which he comes to life, defeats a rat king, turns into a prince, and takes Clara to a magical candy kingdom where she watches a sort of multinational (and somewhat culturally insensitive, by today's standards) ballet variety show.  It's a classic Christmas tradition, set to Tchaikovsky's unforgettable score.  
But until reading this beautiful hardcover edition I never realized that the ballet is actually a watered-down version of a much stranger, darker, and more complicated story by Romantic author E.T.A. Hoffmann.  Here "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" is translated from German by Ralph Mannheim and illustrated by the late, lamented Maurice Sendak.

I thought:  Well, was this book a surprise!  I read a few chapters each night to my five-year-old daughter, Isobel, and we finished it in a week.  It is by far the most literarily advanced thing we've read aloud together, and I loved discovering with her this wide departure from the familiar ballet story.  A good deal of plot probably went over her head- the language isn't always child-friendly, with fairly long and convoluted sentences and uncommon words like "roseate" and "scaramouche."  (Although I should thank Hoffmann/Mannheim for the happy moment during the ballet when Isobel correctly identified hussars!)  But still, if she were writing this review I know she'd have positive things to say and as a mom I have to give it some points.

Will we read it every year and love it again and again?  I'm not sure.  As much as I adore Maurice Sendak's books, the Nutcracker illustrations didn't thrill me.  I suppose I'm too accustomed to the visual beauty of ballet accompanying this story; Mr. Sendak's characters are more straightforward and cartoonish.  And sometimes they really don't accurately illustrate the physical attributes, settings, and action of the text.  That was confusing, especially to Isobel.  If Hoffman describes the prince as having a red coat, why is he wearing a purple one in the picture?  And why are there all these beautiful but tangentially-related full-spread illustrations?  I suppose, since I'm not an artist or illustrator myself, I don't understand the urge to depart so much from the text.  The pictures, especially the full-spread ones, are very nicely done.  But personally I would prefer them to be lavish and glistening.

Still, this is a good edition to look for if you want The Nutcracker's text as it was originally conceived, and if you are a big Sendak fan you'll probably appreciate his illustrations more than I did.  I enjoyed it and I'm happy to have it in my family's collection of holiday books.  And if my kids request it year after year, I will likely come to love it more passionately than I do now.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations:  I'd definitely recommend reading this a little bit at a time over the holidays, preferably with snuggly adorable children listening.

Warnings:  Nothin'.  Non-religious readers might not appreciate that this story is slightly more Christian than the ballet.  Very young children might be frightened by some of the darker elements: mild peril, scary rats, toy battle sequences, disfiguring magic spells.

What I'm reading next:  Still Les Misérables