The Stolen Child: Avid Readers’ Discussion 05/01/08
May 3, 2008 at 4:41 pm | In Avid Readers, Books! Books! Books!, Uncategorized | Leave a CommentFor the first time in three months, our book club meeting wasn’t assailed or even threatened by inclement weather. Discounting the near fog-like haze of pollen in the air that was wreaking havoc with the sinuses of a couple members (your faithful blogger included), it was a pleasant Thursday evening to relax, enjoy some snacks, and discuss Keith Donohue’s debut novel The Stolen Child. I’d been looking forward to reading and discussing this book for months. It is the first instance of real genre fiction that we’ve approached, and I was both nervous and excited about the reactions. I’m a great reader of genre fiction. I devour large chunks of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and noir mysteries for my pleasure reading, but I knew from prior discussions that the other Avid Readers were not great fans of the stuff. So it was with some eagerness and some trepidation that I opened the discussion of The Stolen Child.
Donohue’s novel, named for a William Butler Yeats poem in which a child is tempted away from the world of humans by a persuasive faery, is the story of a group of hobgoblins living in the forest somewhere in the northeaster United States. These faeries of the woods are eternally young and live a hardscrabble life in the forest, each waiting for his or her turn to switch places with a young human child and return to the human world. The story begins in the late 1940s with the abduction of Henry Day. Young Henry runs away from home one day and hides himself in a hollow tree, where he is seized by the hobgoblins, transformed through magic rites into one of their kind, and replaced by a changeling who is able to adapt himself physically to take the place of Henry Day. And so the young Henry Day becomes Aniday the hobgoblin/faery, and the changeling takes over Henry’s former life. The novel details the dovetailing development of both characters: Aniday’s search for his lost childhood and coming of age as a complex individual trapped in a child’s body, and Henry’s quest to find his place in the human world and discover the secrets of his long-lost past prior to his life as a changeling.
If all this sounds very outlandish and far-flung, it’s really not. Donohue uses his fantastic premise as a springboard to tell a story about the difference between an idealized childhood and the reality of life in modern America. Likewise, the hobgoblins of his novel are not the characters of Disney fairy tales: rather than living carefree in the forest, they brave the brutal elements and struggle to preserve the secret of their existence from the encroaching modern world. Above all, the strength of the novel is its ability to depict honest human emotion and ground the fantastic plot devices in a realistic setting. While hobgoblins and magic are most certainly the stuff of fantasy, the ephimeral nature of identity and the basic human desire for acceptance and belonging are not. At one point, a character in the novel mentions that many myths and legends are simply different modes of expressions for the human condition. It could be inferred by the reader that this is exactly what Donohue is attempting with The Stolen Child.
For a debut novel, The Stolen Child is a surprisingly polished and cohesive read. All the members of the group mentioned that they would read another of the author’s books. Even those members who were initially reluctant about reading a book categorized as fantasy reacted positively to The Stolen Child. In the end, I think those members walked away with a different impression of what fantasy literature could entail. I suggested also the works of Neil Gaiman and Christopher Moore as other works of fantasy that ground many of the genre’s tropes in the real world and use them to speak about the human condition.
I was very happy indeed that everyone approached this book and its genre with an open mind. I was even happier that their open-mindedness paid off and they enjoyed the book. We all agreed that one of the purposes of our club was to read things we normally wouldn’t read.
Next month, we’ll discuss another debut novel: Michael Cox’s The Meaning of Night. Subtitled A Confession, this novel is set in Victorian England and contains the first-person account of a man plotting the death of his sworn enemy. Despite weighing in at a hefty 700 pages, it promises to be an enthralling read if the numerous glowing reviews are to be believed. We’ll meet on Thursday June 5 at 6:30 for light refreshments and discussion. As always, we welcome and encourage all newcomers. Book club copies of The Meaning of Night are available for extended checkout at the information desk. Drop in and pick up a copy, and we’ll look forward to seeing you at our next meeting.
Suite Francaise: Avid Readers’ Discussion 4/3/08
April 9, 2008 at 10:45 pm | In Avid Readers, Books! Books! Books! | Leave a CommentThe Avid Readers book club convened on yet another evening that carried with it the threat of horrible weather. The last two meetings have taken place under the shadow of forecasted snowfall, and this latest meeting was nearly derailed by a predicted deluge of rain and possible hail. Thankfully, the weather rain dried up and the clouds even parted for a few hours to allow for our discussion of Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise, a novel about the German occupation of France written during the German occupation of France by a Jewish writer living in France. The novel is actually a combination of two novellas of a proposed five that were written immediately preceding the author’s imprisonment and death at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.
The story behind the novel’s publication is just as interesting as the plot of the novel. Nemirovsky wrote the first two novellas were handwritten in tiny script in a leatherbound journal. When Nemirovsky’s husband was later taken to Auschwitz, the couple’s daughters fled, taking with them a suitcase of family documents, including that leatherbound notebook. For years, neither daughter examined the contents of the notebook, fearing that it contained a journal or diary, the contents of which would prove to painful to read. Then, in 2004, the daughters donated their mother’s papers to a museum, and the contents of the notebook were finally discovered, translated, and published.
Suite Francaise is, of course, an unfinished novel, and as such, there is no satisfying conclusion. Although the author did leave behind copious notes about the events of the next part of the novel (and even some notes about the final two parts), so much of what was not written was due to the fact that history had yet to unfold the background against which Nemirovsky’s characters interact. In fact, in the author’s notes (published here as an appendix to the novel), she admits that the final parts of the novel are in “limbo,” as the world events surrounding their plots was still very much in flux.
What we found most enjoyable about Suite Francaise is what sets it apart from most World War II novels: that it focuses on the day to day lives of common people. Nemirovsky wrote that she wanted to portray the comedy of day to day life, and there are moments of quiet comedy in the novel that seem almost incongruous with the calamitous events taking place on the world stage. The events of Suite Francaise, especially the second part, concern mostly common people who are trying to retain some sense of normalcy in the midst of war.
The first novella, Storm in June, uses multiple viewpoints to depict the mass exodus of people from Paris at the threat of the German advance. We see the chaos through the eyes of a middle-aged couple, an aristocratic family (and in one instance, their cat), a famous writer, and a priest travelling with a group of juvenile delinquents. In the second novella, Dolce, Nemirovsky uses a tighter focus, mostly depicting an occupied provincial town through the eyes of a young woman who has trouble reconciling her personal feelings for a German officer with her national identity.
We were evenly split over our opinions for Suite Francaise: some of us liked it wholeheartedly, others didn’t care for it, and still others preferred the first novella to the second. Nevertheless, the novel is an interesting historical artifact and one of the few pieces of historical fiction about the German occupation that is actually contemporary to the period.
We’ll be shifting gears next month to read a bit of modern fantasy. We’ll meet again May 1 to discuss Keith Donohue’s The Stolen Child. This novel is the story of a young man who is captured by a group of mysterious forest creatures and raised by them. In his place, the creatures leave a changeling, who is in turn raised by “normal” parents. The novel chronicles the lives of both young men, and highlights their searches for identity.
The Truth (or something like it)
March 28, 2008 at 1:59 pm | In Books! Books! Books!, Uncategorized | 1 CommentTwo years ago, James Frey published his memoir A Million Little Pieces to widespread acclaim. Oprah picked up the title for her book club, and all the attending sales and accolades that accompany Oprah’s approval were showered on Frey. Then came the accusations and eventual admissions that parts of the book were greatly exaggerated if not fabricated entirely.
Fast forward two years, and two more authors have published memoirs that have recently been revealed as fabricated: Margaret B. Jones’ Love and Consequences and Misha Defonseca’s Misha: a Memoir of the Holocaust Years. Admittedly, both books seem to tell stories that stretch the limits of credibility: the former tells of a half white/half Native American girl who was raised by black foster parents, and sold drugs for a Los Angeles street gang; the latter tells of a girl who travelled with and was protected by a pack of wolves. It does seem puzzling that publishers that almost assuredly employ professional fact-checkers let these two slip through the cracks. In Defonseca’s case, the book went unchallenged for so long that it was translated into 18 languages and made into a French film.
What puzzles me is the amount of public outrage concerning these books. Sure, many people have read these books and been inspired by them, and now feel cheated. Nobody likes to be duped, and readers probably feel a bit like Dorothy when she notices the man behind the curtain.
But, as a writer and lover of fiction, I have to ask if the authenticity of these narratives is really that important. The words are the same whether they describe real life events or ones conjured out of an author’s imagination. Also, while certain novels are purely works of imagination, they are as “true” as any piece of nonfiction. The Grapes of Wrath and The Things They Carried are shot through with truth despite the fact that they are works of fiction. I suspect that part of the reason authors like Frey feel the need to attach claims of veracity to their works is that such a claim at least partly frees them from the rigors that are attached to crafting great works of fiction: character building, plotting, etc.
Perhaps all this outrage over these memoirs is just a sign of our troubled times. People are looking for something to believe in and just feel let down. I’d point them towards the transformative and inspirational potential of fiction. Therein are powerful words and images. True or not.
Another Treasure Lost: Arthur C. Clarke
March 20, 2008 at 10:25 pm | In Books! Books! Books!, Uncategorized | Leave a CommentI was sitting down to my breakfast this morning with the comforting drone of some cable news network nattering away in the background when my ears perked up at the sound of a familiar name: Arthur C. Clarke. I wondered why Clarke was being discussed on the news. After all, while he’s a hero to many in the scientific and science fiction communities, he’s hardly a celebrity headline-grabber in these days of rampant tabloid journalism. Turns out that Clarke had passed away at the age of 90 in his home in Sri Lanka. He’d departed from this world, this dimension, leaving behind instructions for his secular funeral and a sample of his DNA to someday be put into orbit. It seemed to me that the world became a poorer place for our loss of Clarke.
My personal experience with Arthur C. Clarke has been one that no doubt many have shared. As an avid reader of science fiction, I’ve read and loved many of his works. I count his 1953 novel Childhood’s End (which contains what I’d call a beautiful and inspiring depiction of the world’s end…no kidding) among my favorite books. And, like many, I’ve watched Stanley Kubrick’s film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey countless times. Clarke’s novels are brimming with fascinating ideas and stunning imagination.
Clarke was also a brilliant scientific mind. In addition to his prodigious fiction output, Clarke wrote nonfiction books about space travel. He is credited with the idea of communications satellites as early as 1945. In fact, the geosynchronous orbits which communications satellites follow are called Clarke Orbits. He was also an underwater explorer who did extensive work in the Indian Ocean and the Great Barrier Reef. In 1989, he was named a Commander of the British Empire, and was knighted in 1998.
With so many awards and so much prestige attached to his work in varying scientific fields, Clarke still insisted that he wanted to be remembered foremost as a writer. And since this is how I primarily think of Arthur C. Clarke, I’m glad that I’m honoring his wishes. His final novel, The Last Theorem, will be published later this year, and I have no doubt that the reading experience for me, and for many, will be somewhat bittersweet.
Referring to his DNA sample he set aside to be sent into orbit, Clarke said, “One day, some super civilization may encounter this relic from the vanished species and I may exist in another time…Move over, Stephen King.”
Here’s to hoping that in some distant future, some far-flung alien race will be lucky enough to have Arthur C. Clarke in their midst.
Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008)
Shaking Hands With an Old Friend
March 15, 2008 at 7:50 pm | In Books! Books! Books!, Uncategorized | Leave a CommentOne of the great things about the adaptation of novels into movies is that it encourages otherwise reluctant readers to investigate the source material. I’m thinking of the recent screen adaptations of Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend. It was the latter that got me thinking. Although I really have no interest in seeing this latest adaptation (how could anything top Vincent Price’s portrayal of Robert Neville?), it did make me pick up my copy of Matheson’s greatest novel. After skimming through a few of my favorite passages, I decided that no amount of movie magic could live up to the standards I would have going into the theater. So rather than suffer the inevitable disappointment and annoying my loved ones with constant carping, I decided to leave well enough alone and stick with the book.
I have a long history with I Am Legend. We’re old friends. I read the book every October. I’ve read it perhaps a dozen times. It’s like shaking hands with an old friend, familiar to the point of routine, but comforting and somehow life-affirming.
I find it interesting that some people don’t re-read a book. I’ve spoken to people who feel like a finished book is…well, a closed book. For the most part, I agree with them. I read a lot of books that are good diversions, books that I enjoy, but also books that I’ll likely never revisit. But then there are those old friends that beckon from the bookshelf.
I’ve read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness over and over again. It’s one of those books that was assigned reading in many english classes, and although I knew the book very well, I always took the time to re-read it. There was always something about Marlow’s narrative voice that dragged me into the jungle with him. Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is another book that seems to leap of the shelf and into my hands. I’ve made my way through all the short stories by Poe and Lovecraft many times over. Those three writers craft such vivid worlds that just reading their works is like vacationing in strange lands, even if it is a return trip.
The books that I re-read are books that are entwined so deeply with memories from my past that I can’t, for example, read even a paragraph of Blood Meridian without remembering an ice storm that knocked out the power supply in my family’s home for the better part of a week. Every time I delve into the (mis)adventures of the Kid, I remember sitting in front of the fireplace under a pile of blankets, reading by candlelight. It’s a memory shared between me and a good old friend.
There are lots of good books out there that are worth reading. Even better, there are lots of great books worth reading again.
The Franklin Affair: Avid Readers’ Discussion 3/6/08
March 7, 2008 at 3:59 pm | In Avid Readers, Uncategorized | Leave a CommentA small (or shall we say “very exclusive”) contingent of the Avid Readers group met on a Thursday night to discuss Jim Lehrer’s novel The Franklin Affair. Despite our numbers being thinned by the threat of impending snowfall (none of which actually materialized in our immediate vicinity), we had a short discussion about the novel, which blends historical fiction with a mystery of sorts.
The Franklin Affair is the story of R. Taylor, a writer and historian specializing in early American history, in particular the historical figures of the American Revolution. Most importantly, R. (as he is referred to throughout the novel) is a Ben Franklin fan. One of the more interesting aspects of the novel, aside from the myriad tidbits of historical information about Franklin and his contemporaries, is the portrayal of historians as fanatical followers of particular historical figures. R. self-identifies himself as part of the “Ben crowd,” whereas his girlfriend is a follower of John Hancock (whom R. constantly refers to as a bit player in the grand scheme of American history). When R. comes to Philadelphia for the funeral of his mentor, who is a prize-winning Franklin biographer, R. becomes embroiled in a plagiarism controversy concerning a bestselling Ronald Reagan biography. As if all this upheaval isn’t enough, R’s mentor entrusts him with a secret that may implicate Ben Franklin in a murder and other founding fathers in the cover up thereof. R must balance his loyalties to Franklin’s legacy with his responsibilities as a historian, as well as his love for his deceased mentor, who may also be guilty of plagiarism.
Now, if you think this sounds like a convoluted plot, consider also that it is all crammed into a mere 207 pages. And therein lies the major problem that we had with the novel. The plot, while interesting, seems hurried along, with some characters and storylines simply disappearing without much resolution. Add to this that some of the characters are very thinly drawn and their relationships halfhearted, and you end up with a novel, that while interesting and very readable, ends up not quite satisfying. Lehrer clearly has a deep love for history and he transfers that enthusiasm to his characters to the point of humorous exaggeration. We wondered if the historians of the real world are anything like the fanatics portrayed in the novel, who seem more suited to a Star Trek convention than academia.
Perhaps all this criticism makes The Franklin Affair seem like a terrible book. It’s not. We did feel that it was an interesting concept, albeit one that seemed to cry out for more three-dimensional characters and better resolution. While so much historical fiction feels overwritten and long, The Franklin Affair seemed almost like the first half of a really good book that simply stopped at an arbitrary number of pages. Lehrer is clearly a talented writer, who has a command of clear prose and sense of setting. On those two merits alone, we feel that he is writer worth reading.
Be sure to join us again on April 3 to discuss Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise. This novel was somewhat of a publishing sensation in 2006 upon its translation from the French. The author was a Jewish writer living in France who died in Auschitz. This novel went unpublished until its discovery decades later.
Remember that all newcomers are welcome to jump right in and join the discussion.
A Case for The Literary Big Mac
March 1, 2008 at 5:24 pm | In Books! Books! Books! | 1 CommentToday on my lunch break, I skipped out and purchased a copy of Stephen King’s latest novel Duma Key (I know, I know…I work in a library. But give me a break; I’m currently reading three books and there’s no way I’ll get through King’s doorstop of a book in just two weeks). Normally, I’m not the most self-conscious reader; what I like to read is what I like to read, and I’m comfortable with that. I’ve read Gravity’s Rainbow (twice, actually) and I’ve slogged through Ulysses, so I feel like I’ve proven my mettle as a reader enough to not go around constantly doing the heavy lifting. But after reading an essay by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and staunch defender of genre fiction Michael Chabon, I mused a bit over my choice in reading. Chabon’s essay lashed out against the stigma against writers who embrace genre fiction or pop culture literature, stating that such writers are condemned to a career writing in literary exile (of course, Chabon did win the Pulitzer for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel that embraces genre fiction to its fullest extent, so how exactly Chabon defines “exile” is probably great fodder for another discussion).
I think what made me connect the dots from Stephen King’s latest novel to Chabon’s essay (which some have perhaps correctly called a rant or tirade) is the lambasting that noted literary critic Harold Bloom dealt Stephen King in a 2003 article upon the occasion of the latter receiving the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Bloom called this award “another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life.” If Chabon’s essay could rightly be termed a tirade, then the same label should no doubt be stamped upon Bloom’s criticism of King (Bloom also used the same article as an opportunity to toss some barbs at another big target: J. K. Rowling). In fact, Bloom’s article emits that aura of elitism that authors like King and Chabon sidestep at every opportunity. King has even gone so far as to call his own writing “the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.” And it has been my observation that critics are immediately wary of anything so popular (seeing the response to Oprah’s choice of Cormac McCarthy for her book club is probably also great fodder for another discussion).
With all this in mind, I began to wonder exactly when this great divide between the “novel of literature” and the “popular novel” opened like some great chasm in the literary world. It certainly couldn’t have been that long ago. A cursory reading of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary reveals that by 1856, a prejudice had developed toward romantic novels. Although I’m no literary historian, I’d guess that the real split took place when Charles Dickens entered the picture. Dickens was enormously popular in his lifetime, a feat that few novelists had managed in that era. He was famous for playing to his audience’s tastes, and was the 19th century equivalent of a bestselling author, the kind who would today be guaranteed a spot at the top of the New York Times bestseller list every time he published. And while contemporary critics praise Dickens’ works, he is an author who in his lifetime received little serious critical attention. In short, Charles Dickens was a lot like Stephen King: he enjoyed overwhelming approval from the vox populi and there wasn’t enough critical ink in the world to damage that approval.
What motivates critics like Harold Bloom to train their critical sights on Stephen King and open fire with both barrels is not something I can begin to understand or fully explain, but I feel confident enough to hazard a few guesses. Perhaps Bloom feels the writing is really that bad. Perhaps, as some have suggested, it is simply a case of sour grapes. After all, Stephen King is enormously popular. As an author, his work is so bankable from a publishing standpoint that no amount of critical vitriol could hope to diminish his support from readers. A critic–or even a single-minded mass of critics–trying to assail King’s popularity through pointed reviews would be similar in effect to a lunatic trying to melt the Mendenhall glacier with a hairdryer. I suspect that most critics feel that the only criticism they can apply to King (or Rowling or John Grisham or any of the crop of current publishing juggernauts) is by retreating from his current work and taking aim at that ephemeral thing in the distance: the literary legacy. By awarding King a medal for distinguished contribution to literature, the National Book Foundation made King’s legacy a harder target for critics, and I have some suspicion that Bloom’s impassioned condemnation is partly the result of his fear that such an award has unfairly placed King in the upper echelon of American letters. In such territory, King might become impervious to critical slings and arrows. If so, I’d comfort Bloom by telling him not to worry, that slagging Stephen King is still firmly in vogue in most English departments (I know firsthand: there was plenty in the department from which I graduated).
Of course, no discussion of King’s literary merit, or lack thereof, could be considered anythinig resembling complete without mention of genre fiction (again, we arrive back at Chabon). No author can better draw the ire of critics and professors like the author of genre fiction. Pick a genre, any genre: science fiction, horror, mystery, romance, the graphic novel, etc. At this moment there are probably writing workshops, critical panel discussions, graduate classes, or even book clubs where these genres and the authors who call them home are being savaged. As a writer of genre fiction, I have to admit that the form can be an easy punching bag, just as any niche market artwork is. But the across-the-board dismissal of genre fiction as literary junk food seems like a type of broadstroke criticism, and thankfully (again, depending on your perspective) one that is becoming obsolete. Witness the canonization of J. R. R Tolkein. Behold the critical attention now being paid to Raymond Chandler. Take a long look at the writings concerning the works of Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick, both of whom helped tranform science fiction from a literary ghetto to a place that some serious critics are beginning to tread (albeit with no little trepidation).
And if we are to roundly dismiss genre fiction, then what do we do with Shakespeare? His works are filled with violence, vengeful spirits, witches, anachronism, and outrageous coincidence (and that’s just Macbeth!). And let’s not forget classical literature. Beowulf and The Odyssey bear more than a passing resemblance to the landscape of modern fantasy fiction. Stephen King’s work is filled with similar genre tropes: he trots out zombies, axe-weilding madmen (and women), vengeful cars, alternate dimensions, and space aliens. For some critics, no amount of careful plotting, character development, or sense of setting can overcome these transgressions; the inclusions of such genre staples is reason enough for a critical beheading.
But what do I know? Harold Bloom is a professor at Yale, and I’m a humble library staffer. The sum total of Bloom’s literary experience no doubt dwarfs mine (to be fair, he is in his 70s, whereas I just ripened to the old age of 29). Perhaps I’m wrong to defend Stephen King’s literary Big Macs. Perhaps my grandchildren will sneer at Stephen King’s novels in their college literature classes. Perhaps Harold Bloom is right. Perhaps the primary focus of literature should not be simply to entertain. While it’s probably obvious from my entry here (which, despite my best intentions, has probably become a Chabon-esqe tirade) that I’m a supporter of Stephen King’s writing, I’d never want to position myself to be a critic of Bloom’s magnitude. So maybe you should take this whole argument with that old cliched grain of salt.
One thing is for sure, however: Stephen King doesn’t need my approval, and I doubt Harold Bloom’s condemnation rankles King all that much. For better or worse, Stephen King is a part of our literay landscape, and whether he’s a shining monument or a cheap roadside attraction is a judgment that belongs to future critics.
Oh, and one more thing that is certain: I’m looking forward to sitting in front of the fire, steaming cup of Sumatra in my had, and reading Duma Key. It looks entertaining.
The Book Thief: Avid Readers’ Discussion 02/07/08
February 8, 2008 at 8:36 pm | In Avid Readers, Uncategorized | Leave a CommentThe Avid Readers group convened on a cold Thursday night to enjoy some good refreshments and even better discussion about Markus Zusak’s astounding novel The Book Thief.
The novel is set in a small German town during the early years of World War II, and features a unique literary framing device: the narrator of the book is Death himself. Zusak’s narrator, who is neither grim nor a reaper, as he makes clear in one of his many asides, tells the tale of Leisel Meminger and her experiences with her foster parents in the small town of Molching, and more specifically to the poor neighborhood of Himmel Street. Leisel is a precocious, willful child who comes to her new home illiterate and clutching her first stolen book, a professional guide for beginning gravediggers. From this auspicious beginning, Death narrates the story of a few years in the life of a girl who becomes a book thief and a word shaker.
Set against a backdrop that features many harrowing aspects (the Holocaust, the Nazi book burnings, the air raid sirens, and comulsory Hitler Youth rallies), The Book Thief is primarily a coming of age story, and one that includes moments the streak across the emotional spectrum: from heart-rendingly tragic to heart-warmingly funny, often within the same chapter. The reader sees Leisel and her foster parents, the Hubermanns, bear up courageously in circumstances that would drive others to cowardice.
Leisel’s journey from illiterate foster child to intelligent, compassionate, and integral member of a family is accompanied by a colorful cast of characters. There is Rudy Steiner, Leisel’s best friend, who paints himself with charcoal to emulate his hero Jesse Owens. There is Ilsa Hermann, the mayor’s wife, who allows Leisel to “steal” books from the Hermann’s library. There is Max Vandenburg, the Jewish fist-fighter hidden in the Hubermann’s basement. Each character is rendered vividly, and sticks with the reader long after the novel’s profound conclusion.
Our group found The Book Thief to be a compelling and unforgettable novel. One of our group even ventured that the book would be one that would wind up in her 50 Favorite Books list. We all agreed that we’d recommend the book without reservation. Zusak’s writing is clean and clear, sometimes even simple, but his novel is tightly and inventively structured. Better still, it is a book that concerns an era about which much is written that still manages to provide a fresh perspective and a compelling plot.
If you haven’t had the opportunity to read The Book Thief, we all recommend that you pick up a copy and spend some time with Leisel and the other inhabitants of Himmel Street. We promise that it is not a novel that you will soon forget.
The Avid Readers group will meet again on Thursday March 6 at 6:30PM to discuss Jim Lehrer’s novel The Franklin Affair, an historically-based mystery that promises to be a lively read.
50 Favorite Books update!!!
February 4, 2008 at 10:55 pm | In Books! Books! Books!, Uncategorized | Leave a CommentSince I heard Kevin Brockmeier speak about his constantly evolving list of 50 Favorite Books, I challenged the Avid Readers to come up with their own lists. Since no one has yet responded, I shall be the one to break the ice. I adhered to Mr. Brockmeier’s rules: all the entries are alphabetical, with an asterisk indicating my absolute favorites, and each author gets only one entry. The latter rule was hard to adhere to: singling out a favorite book from some of the impressive bodies of work that make up the ouevres of some of these authors was hard work indeed.
I realized in writing this list a few things about my taste in books:
1. I read an nearly equal amount of living and dead authors. Given the fact that there are far more of the latter than the former, I’ve deduced that my preference is for modern authors.
2. Many of these books have been adapted as films. Many of those films are very bad translations of great books.
3. There aren’t a whole lot of classics on the list. I guess that means I’m honest, and that somewhere my Intro to English Lit professors are weeping.
Without further ado, the 50 Favorite Books of Brad:
Abbey, Edward. The Monkeywrench Gang
Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Asimov, Isaac. I, Robot
Barker, Clive. The Books of Blood *
Bester, Alfred. The Demolished Man
Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles *
Brooks, Max. World War Z *
Bugliosi, Vincent. Helter Skelter
Burroughs, Edgar Rice. A Princess of Mars
Cain, James. The Postman Always Rings Twice
Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep *
Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood’s End
Clarke, Susanna. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness
Dick, Philip K. A Scanner Darkly *
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Lost World
Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho
Gaiman, Neil and Pratchett, Terry. Good Omens
Gibson, William. Neuromancer
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies
Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon
Hays, Donald. The Dixie Association
Heinlein, Robert A. Stranger in a Strange Land
Herbert, Frank. Dune
Howard, Robert E. The Bloody Crown of Conan
Ketchum, Jack. Off Season
King, Stephen. Pet Semetary *
Lovecraft, H. P. At the Mountains of Madness *
Martin, George R. R., A Song of Ice and Fire series
Matheson, Richard. I Am Legend *
McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian
McMurtry, Larry. Lonesome Dove
Mieville, China. Perdido Street Station *
Nabakov, Vladimir. Lolita
Norris, Frank. McTeague
Orwell, George. 1984
Poe, Edgar Allen. The Complete Stories and Poems
Reynolds, Alastair. Chasm City
Robinson, Kim Stanley. The Years of Rice and Salt
Schwartz, Alvin. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series *
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein
Stephenson, Neal. The Baroque Cycle
Stirling, Bruce. Schismatrix
Stoker, Bram. Dracula
Thompson, Jim. The Killer Inside Me
Tolkein, J. R. R. The Hobbit
Vandermeer, Jeff. City of Saints and Madmen
Vonnegut, Kurt. Galapagos
Wells, H. G. The Island of Dr. Moreau
Welsh, Irvine. Filth
A Woman in Jerusalem: Avid Readers discussion 1/03/08
January 8, 2008 at 3:48 pm | In Avid Readers, Uncategorized | Leave a CommentThe Avid Readers group convened on a cold Thursday night to enjoy some light refreshments and discuss A. B. Yehoshua’s novel A Woman in Jerusalem.
The novel is the story of a Russian born woman who dies in a bombing in Jerusalem. The only means of identifying her body after the blast is a pay stub from a bakery where the woman was briefly employed. A muckraking newspaper reporter prints a scathing article about the bakery’s supposed inhumanity to its employees for allowing the woman’s body to lay unclaimed and unidentified in a morgue for so long. Wracked both by guilty feelings and the bad publicity generated by the article, the bakery’s owner charges the human resources manager with the task of locating and notifying the dead woman’s family of the tragedy.
Slowly, this somewhat unusual assignment develops into a mission that finds the human resources manager travelling to a remote village in a former Soviet republic. Along the way, the novel becomes a meditation on some very heavy topics, among which are questions about humanity, compassion, and responsibility to our fellow citizens. A Woman in Jerusalem is somewhat enigmatic and doesn’t offer any easy answers. Like the characters in the novel, the readers are forced to draw their own conclusions about the validity of the human resources manager’s mission and the degree to which he is successful.
Our opinions about A. B. Yehoshua’s novel ran lukewarm. On one hand, we felt that the novel was inventive and brought up some important ideas, but we also felt that it was somewhat flawed in its execution. One group member felt that the novel suffered from repetitiveness and was slightly annoyed that the characters were referred to by their titles or roles in the plot rather than with proper names. As a group we felt that some of the intricacies were probably lost in the cultural translation.
The Avid Readers will meet again on Thursday February 7 to discuss Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, a novel set in World War II and narrated by Death himself. Join us for what promises to be a lively discussion about an interesting book.
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