Where's the rest of the story?

I asked myself that question as I finished Blind Man With a Pistol. This detective story had no resolution. You don't find out who the killer was. Instead, more killings take place in the last chapter.

The unresolved nature of the story is difficult for me to like. It reminded me of the game where one person starts a story, then another person picks it up from there, and so on. Fun, but not how I like my novels. This book is set in Harlem and it is one of those books where the author's goal is not necessarily to tell a story but get a message across. The message about the struggle the residents of the book face came through very clearly. I just would rather read a story, thanks.

Not a good bedtime story.

You know when you are so thoroughly freaked out by something that every little noise in the night wakes you up and you are freaked out that the BOOGEYMAN is going to come in your room and GET YOU that very night? Yes, that was me last night. And yes, I am 32 and stuff still scares the crap out of me. I'm a big scaredy-cat.

What was freaking me out so much last night, you ask? Well, I finished The Black Dahlia last night before I went to bed. This book was so good, so absorbing, that I couldn't put it down and I was reading it at pretty much every available second. This book is very violent and disturbing, dealing with a LA cop's search for the killer of a young woman dubbed "The Black Dahlia" in 1947. (According to Wikipedia, the murder is still unsolved.) The murder itself was horrific and, in addition to that, the whole book is just really gritty and violent. It even scared me more than American Psycho because it is based on a true event and there wasn't the "oh, phew" ending.

Don't get me wrong though. I really, really thought this was an excellent book and I enjoyed reading it very much. Just not great bedtime reading for a scaredy-cat like me!

By and by, I got to reading Huckleberry Finn

I actually got to listening Huckleberry Finn as I drove to and from my class in Northampton and to and from work. Like Emily, I never had to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school or college, and I don't know why. Well by and by, I got to it. I am so glad I finally did-- what a fun story! It was a really good book to listen to because the reader had the dialect and voices down perfect. I think if I physically had to read all the dialect bits with "We would learn Jim how to write on the shirt" instead of "We would teach Jim to write on the shirt" I might get really irritated. Listening to it made those parts blend in. I found the story really funny, especially how Tom is dead set on making everything so hard in order to be "right" and Huck thinks that's ridiculous. I agree with Emily that everything ties up a little too neatly in the end, but I'm glad Jim was freed.

Regarding Twain's use of the word "nigger"-- 60 Minutes did a brilliant segment earlier this year about a publisher replacing every instance of the word with "slave" instead. I linked to the transcript of the show because I found it really interesting. If I were black, I may feel differently, but I find Twain's usage a sign of the times and to change the text in such a way makes it a shadow of the great story it is.

Marissa

She's a Bleak...House!

I mentioned last entry that Bleak House was next on my list and that I hadn't enjoyed the Dickens I read in the past. Maybe it is growing up a bit, or maybe it is the setting (being on vacation would put anyone in a good mood), but I was amazed by this book. There were so many interconnected subplots, a detective story, social commentary, all set against the backdrop of this criticism of the English legal system: Jarndyce and Jarndyce, the longest-running Chancery case ever.

I'm sure this book has been analyzed very thoughtfully, better than I ever could, so I won't get into all of that. Just a couple of things struck me. A lot of the themes of this book are still relevant 150 years later, no small feat. However, there are major cultural shifts at work also. The female narrator, Esther, stands out as a culturally ideal woman of her time. She never has a negative word to say and is always happy to do whatever people ask of her. While I like Esther (she is impossible not to like) I am glad that society has developed such that women are valued for their thoughts and opinions as well as their appearance and acquiescence to the ideas of the gentlemen around them.

As I write this, I am watching my husband and daughter play in the pool. The book I thought would be a boring, slow vacation read turned out to be anything but!

Summertime...but the livin's not easy when you're trapped in a sinking car.

It seems like I'm reading a whole bunch of summer related books all in a row. Which is nice. I love summer. Of course right now the heat index is 113 so I am enjoying summer from inside the comfort of my home and the air conditioning. I still love it though.

I really was interested to read Black Water, which is kind of a novel loosely based on the Chappaquiddick incident. And I think the book is good. I was slightly disappointed that the book was more like a series of short essays or streams of consciousness from the woman stuck in the car, rather than a novel that held all together. I did enjoy it though, just a little more "English class" and less "interesting novel" than I expected.

I think Bleak House is next. Is that a summer book too? Something tells me it won't be a quick beach read. Dickens and I have not gotten along very well in the past.

Happy Summer!

Mike and I agree that June is one of our favorite months of the year. Weather is great, and there is the promise of the whole summer ahead. Vacations are on the horizon and everything seems a little more relaxed, a little more fun.

We celebrated the first weekend in June this year by spending some time at the pool. The large pool was pretty cold, but the kiddie pool was just the right temperature to splash around with Peanut. It was fantastic.

Eilis Dillon's book The Bitter Glass is also about the beginning of summer. The MacAuley kids head to their summer place ahead of their parents, but the civil war in Ireland causes them to be separated from their parents in Connemara. I liked this book a lot. It was an easy, quick read but managed to raise some questions about the historical context of the novel, the motivations of the characters, and what Ireland was like at that time of history. It isn't necessarily a fun summer beach read (definitely sad) but enjoyable nonetheless.

Not the Black Dog that I am used to.

The Black Dog that I am familiar with is a very touristy restaurant and shop that is fun to visit when on the Cape. We buy T-shirts and various other items there. I try to get a T-shirt of a different color each year. Peanut really likes them - so much that if I am wearing a Black Dog shirt, she asks to wear a "doggie shirt" too.

Ian McEwan's Black Dogs is a lot more sinister, suspenseful, and scary. It is the story about how a young woman's run-in with these huge animals (she thought they were donkeys initially) changed her life and her outlook on the world. The story is told kind of back and forth, so you don't actually get to find out what actually happened when she encountered the dogs until the very end of the book. There is a lot in here about Communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nazi Germany, and other important events affecting Europe in the 20th century as well.

I really enjoy Ian McEwan's writing. Good stories that also really make me think.

More Iris Murdoch!

Before starting this project, I had no idea who Iris Murdoch was and had never read anything by her. The Black Prince is now the second book of hers that I have read (the other one was The Bell.) I like her books because they are a good story, but also can be thought provoking. I think I liked The Black Prince a little bit less than The Bell, just because the story wasn't as interesting to me. But it definitely made me think, and I did like it.

The Black Prince is a story about a middle-aged writer who finds his attempts to write thwarted by various things that happen to his friends and family members. Then, after that, he finds himself falling in love with the very young daughter of a friend of his. But what I thought was really cool about this book is that after the guy finishes his story, there are 4 epilogues by other characters that kind of cast doubt on the events as the narrator has told them. It was a neat way to make you think about the story. (That whole idea of the truthful narrator.)

Intrigue.

Peanut has become quite a little negotiator lately. Her chief techniques are the urgent tone of voice and the word NOW.

Peanut: Want some O's.
Me: Sure. Why don't you finish the O's in your bowl, then you can have some more.
Peanut: Want some more O's NOW.
Me: Yeah, sure, OK. (getting up)

The characters in The Birds Fall Down are dealing with issues much more important (you know, the socialist revolution in Russia). But their style of getting things done is sort of just as basic. Lots of terrorism, lots of spying, basically lots of intrigue. Rather than trying to convince the world what they want, they try to beat the world over the head with it through terrorism.

The Birds Fall Down is the story of an 18 year old girl who gets caught up in a situation where her exiled Russian grandfather has unknowingly been employing a double agent. Worse yet, that double agent might have the hots for her. The book started off really slowly but then toward the middle it became very exciting. I especially was interested in what it said on the book jacket that the book is actually based on something that happened in real life (catching this one particular double spy) that helped pave the way for Lenin's rise to power. Pretty cool.

I don't usually like war books.

Before I started reading all these books, I definitely had preconceived notions about war books. I thought they were all dry and boring and full of death. All Quiet on the Western Front and now, Birdsong, have totally changed my mind. Yes, there is a lot of death and sadness. But the characters are interesting and human and I came away feeling like I learned something. World War I was really a tough, difficult war and it is hard to believe it took place just 100 years ago. I can't believe there were whole groups of men devoted to digging out tunnels under the ground!

I'm surprised I hadn't ever heard of Birdsong before. Since it was published relatively recently it seems like I would have some across it at some point, but nope.

Books 81-90

Here are the next 10 books on the list. Happy May!

81. The Bitter Glass by Ellis Dillon (1958)
82. Black Dogs by Ian McEwan (1992)
83. The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch (1973)
84. Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
85. The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy (1987)
86. Bleak House by Charles Dickens (1853)
87. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (2000)
88. Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes (1969)
89. Blindness by Henry Green (1926)
90. The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1852)

Some good authors on here. I have really liked the Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood and Iris Murdoch books I have read. To say nothing of Charles Dickens, who I struggled with when reading assignments for school - maybe now I have matured enough to enjoy more!

Can't stay in Yorkshire, can't get out of Yorkshire.

What I liked most about Billy Liar, by Keith Waterhouse, is that I think there is a little bit of Billy in lots of us. Billy has a hard time making any decisions, overthinks everything, lives a rich fantasy life because his ordinary life is not so interesting, and struggles when the half-truths he tells people come back and get him. He wants desperately to move to London to pursue his writing hopes but can't bring himself to take the measures necessary to do so.

I didn't think I was going to like this book as much as I did, but I did. I kind of felt bad for Billy that he couldn't quite figure out how to make his life go the way he wanted it to, but it was entertaining.

Totalitarianism and paprika cheese.

Billiards at Half-Past Nine is a fairly readable story of a few generations of a German family coping with their opposition to totalitarianism in the early to mid 1900s. It dragged at times, but wasn't too bad. Definitely a book more for literature/ history types instead of the mainstream reader though.

Gross: the grandfather wants to be remembered at the restaurant where he hopes to become a regular, so he orders paprika cheese. Cream cheese mixed with paprika. Yuck!

An anthropomorphic frog. And Billy Budd too.

Lately Peanut has been liking for us to read her Froggy Plays Soccer by Jonathan London. In Froggy Plays Soccer, an anthropomorphic young frog plays in the big soccer game. But he keeps forgetting the rules and using his hands! Will Froggy remember the rules in time to help his team beat the Wild Things and win the City Cup? You'll have to read it to find out!

I would estimate that I have read Froggy Plays Soccer 963 times this week. I also kept putting off starting Billy Budd this week. I remember being assigned to read Billy Budd in high school, really struggling with it, and not really giving it the effort it deserved. My second reading of Billy Budd was pretty much the same. You know how I summarized Froggy Plays Soccer just now? Well, I am not sure I can even summarize Billy Budd that way. I think basically Billy is this sailor? And he manages to irritate his superior, who trumps up some b.s. accusation against him. And when the captain confronts Billy about the accusation, he punches his superior, accidentally killing him, rather than defend himself. So then he is put to death. Of course it takes Melville 4 pages to write a simple sentence, so this just dragged. And dragged. And dragged.

I think I will stick with Froggy Plays Soccer. At least I have some clue about what is going on.

Before the Sopranos...

...there was Billy Bathgate. This is a really interesting story about a young kid trying to get into a life of organized crime. I normally don't really enjoy crime and violence in books but this one really was good and the violence, while definitely there, didn't ruin the story for me.

It was weird, as I read the book I kind of realized that something was going to take place, that the characters weren't all going to continue to live their lives as they were doing so, so there was this sense of foreboding. Was the main character going to get knocked off?

I really enjoyed this one and even though it was long, I went through it really fast!

I would be a terrible detective.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler is a fun detective story. I like the 1930s historical details like the phone exchanges, people wearing hats, etc. I really enjoyed reading this. The one thing about detective stories is that I can never figure out how the clues are fitting together and then the detective is like, aha! And I'm slightly confused and feel like I missed something. Very clever...I guess that is why I wouldn't be a good detective. That, and the getting shot at all the time.

Details, details.

One of the many things that amazes me about Peanut is her attention to detail. She will notice and remember these little tiny details of things - the blue frog is the one that doesn't light up at Gacky's house, only one of her Playmobil characters has short sleeves, and so on. It is really cool, especially now that she is talking so much, to be able to hear these observations of hers.

Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf is a very detailed look at one day in the life of an English village. Some locals are putting on a pageant and the book takes place just on that day. The way it is written just reminds me of Peanut's details. It wasn't a particularly interesting book from a plot standpoint but I can see why people who are good at literary stuff probably like it! And at least it was shorter than that last book! I have had a string here of a couple in a row that have not been my favorite. Let's hope The Big Sleep turns things around. It's a detective story!

Hey! I have heard of that guy!

The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni, was long. Really really long. And not the most interesting thing I ever read either. One bright spot was that St. Charles Borromeo showed up in kind of a peripheral way, which was nice. There is a local church here that is named for him.

I really didn't care about Renzo and Lucia, the betrothed characters who were kind of star crossed. The bright spot in the book for me was the religious conversion of the Unnamed bad guy. And what seemed like hundreds of pages about bread riots? Not for me.

Anna Karenina and Charlie Sheen, separated at birth?

First of all, wow. I finished Anna Karenina yesterday. I feel like I've been listening to it forever. Now that it's over, I sort of miss those crazy Russians. What a story! Full of family complications, jealousy, betrayal, resignation. It is epic. Fine work, Mr. Tolstoy. I salute you.
Now, about the title of my post comparing Ms. Karenina with Mr. Sheen-- why, you ask? HOW? Charlie Sheen has been all over the news lately like white on rice, and it got me thinking that he and Anna Karenina are very similar. First, the adultery and/or exploits. Anna brings Vronsky into her home while her son is there and he totally knows what's going on. Charlie fools around with a porn star and trashes a hotel room while his daughters are in the next room.
Second, substance abuse. Anna is using opium like it's going out of style at one point. I thought that would be her end. Charlie has been in rehab a few times and his alcohol and drug use is well documented.
Third, they both live on the fringes of society and dislike feeling judged by others. Anna can't even go out in society in Moscow and that nasty lady at the opera is really mean to her. She's an outcast because she can't divorce Alexei Alexandrovitch and marry Vronsky, and she has an illegitimate child. Charlie Sheen, although in the limelight, is on the fringes because he has gotten into trouble with the law and his job, to the point that his TV show is cancelled and he is facing custody issues with his recent ex. Anna can't stand being an outcast and often references her "position." Charlie, in his recent interview on 20/20, likened himself to not being of this terrestrial plain and says he has "tiger blood" and "Adonis DNA." They are frustrated with how they feel other people feel about them.
Finally, they both come off to me as rather erratic. At one point in the audio book, when Anna is being particularly unreasonable about Vronsky, saying that she doesn't care, and he'll pay for this, and the letter doesn't reach him but she thinks she's been given the brush-off and Vronsky wants to leave her, I literally, after every sentence, said aloud, "Because you're crazy!" Anna was out of her mind. Charlie Sheen has made some comments in interviews that seem unusual, like the tiger blood thing, and generally isn't making sense these days, at least to me.
Besides all that, I admire Anna Karenina and Charlie Sheen for being themselves and not conforming to anyone else's standards. Anna loved Vronsky obsessively and they both paid the price. Charlie Sheen likes his lifestyle and doesn't lie about it, and time will tell what happens next. Do I condone it? No, but I appreciate the honesty.
I think if I had read Anna Karenina I would not have liked it as much. I mentioned before that the reader of the audio book was great, and her name escapes me at the moment, but I will look it up. It was very accessible. And Tolstoy, what a beautiful and heartbreaking piece of literature. I think Charlie Sheen should read it.

Marissa

Book backwards of sort a.

Every once in a while Peanut asks us to read to her backwards. At first I thought it was really odd but then I realized that maybe it is her way of focusing more on the words, since I tend to read more slowly that way and use my finger to follow along with the words.

La Bete Humaine is not backwards word for word the way that Peanut likes us to read her books. But the premise is kind of backwards. A murder happens pretty early on in the book and there is no disputing who committed it. The rest of the book deals with the fallout from the murder and basically what happens next in the perpetrators' lives. The book also centers around a French railway line and a lot of the activity occurs in train stations and on trains.

Although this book was written in 1840 there are some pretty modern themes in this book and the construction of it seems way ahead of its time. I really, really liked it. This is one of just a few that I highly, highly recommended to Mike that he read. I think he will find it super interesting.