Happy New Year and a slow read!

Happy New Year 2013!  Many things other than reading have captured my attention since my last entry in December.  I seemed to have lost whatever few minutes I have had to read in the past.  Hence, it took me nearly a full month to read Catch-22, a novel by Joseph Heller.

I was first introduced to Catch-22 when I was in high school and I selected it from the summer reading list.  The only thing I remembered from the book the first time around was Major Major.  Major Major is still one of the more entertaining aspects of the book, and will probably be what I remember from it years from now.  This book just wasn't entertaining, friends.  The critic on the back of the text says the book is "bitingly funny" and I just don't see it.  Perhaps I'm too far removed from the realities of a war to truly understand the humor.  I'll treat that as a blessing.

When everything is turned upside down.

I keep trying and failing to come up with a real life corollary to the dilemma faced by the main character in this book.

Anthony Trollope's Castle Richmond is a very interesting story of upper class life in Ireland during the famine.  The famine is the backdrop to the events that take place, though the main characters themselves are not starving.

The story revolves around the Fitzgerald family of Castle Richmond.  The oldest son's legitimacy to inherit his father's estate and title is called into question, and the book examines the impact on him, his family, his betrothed, and his cousin - the man who would take the estate if the oldest son were not allowed to inherit.  

It is hard for me to imagine how it must feel to be a man whose whole life has been directed by the expectation that he would inherit an estate and be a country gentleman - and is then faced with the prospect of making his way in the world, finding a job, etc.  I really liked this book, especially as it picked up steam toward the middle/end and found it fascinating.

Underwhelmed.

Cat and Mouse is about a group of boys growing up in World War II era Germany.  It follows the narrator's obsession with this other boy, Mahlke.  Mahlke was kind of a different kid and the narrator can't figure out what makes him tick or why he operates the way he does.

I didn't find this book very interesting.  I couldn't really get into it in the beginning and it just kind of dragged on.

Distractions.

I really wanted to like Castle Rackrent.  I loved The Absentee, Maria Edgeworth's other book I read for this project.

I made a mistake though.  I opted to read this one for free on the Kindle for iPad.  And of course, when the book doesn't grip me immediately on the iPad, I have a hard time focusing on the book because there are so many other fun things to do on the iPad.  I literally had to force myself to read for 15 minutes before opening up any other apps to play around.  That doesn't happen to me with a book, and why I very much prefer to read the old analog way.

I don't mean to imply that Castle Rackrent is not excellent literature.  I understand it is once of the first historical novels written in English, and I am always impressed by Edgeworth's characters and how easily the messages can be adapted to modern day society.  I just wish that I was a little less distracted so that I could have more easily enjoyed the fullness of this book.

A castle featuring...a giant hand!

The Castle of Otranto was the third book in a row that I have read that featured the word "Castle" in the title.  The peril of reading these books in alphabetical order, of course.  This was the first one that was actually readable.

The book is short (about 100 pages) and old (published 1764) and free on the Kindle.  What's not to like?  Basically this lord, Manfred, has his castle taken over by the supernatural on the day of the wedding of his son.  But it wasn't obvious supernatural - my favorite was the giant body parts that the servants reported seeing.  The report of a glimpse of a giant hand was fun!  This book was pretty interesting and very readable considering its publication date.  I'm a fan.

Tarot? Heck, no.

I never really got into tarot cards.  I always saw them as lame and cheesy, and the people that I knew that liked them REALLY liked them.

Speaking of lame and cheesy, now I will discuss The Castle of Crossed Destinies.  Basically these people gather in a castle and can't speak.  Instead they use tarot cards to tell each other their stories.  So the whole book is like this:

I surmised from the fact that he laid down the Seven of Cups that something had happened to him in the wood.  Could it be an attack?  Yes, it must have been, since next he put down the Eight of Swords.

No thanks.

In other news, I would like to share the best recipe for Migas I have found on the Internet.  We LOVE this.  Rachael Ray's Mighty Migas  Recipe is (optionally) cheesy, but NOT lame!

Tedium.

Some people think that stay at home parents have tedious lives.  I don't think I do.  At least, it is not tedious to me.  Sure, there is laundry, and there are poop diapers and dirty dishes, but there are also amazing, interesting, fun things that I get to do.

Every once in a while though I get the most mundane dreams.  I'm talking a whole dream where I carry a basket of dirty clothing to the basement, put each item in the washing machine, measure out the soap, etc.  The worst part about it is that I don't end up with actual clean laundry in real life from it.

Summary: happy, interesting life.  Tedious dreams.

You know what was really, really tedious?  The Castle.  I did not like this book one bit and it became such a drudge to get through.  I held out hope that it would be interesting (hey, it's about a castle after all!) but it's a story about how this guy got summoned to be a land surveyor at the castle, but can't go inside the castle because of mountains of bureaucracy.  Everyone in the village accepts the bureaucracy and makes excuses for the officials, but the main character is just baffled by the whole situation.

I read a summary of it on Wikipedia because I wanted to figure out how much I missed and the suggestion was made that it had religious overtones.  If that was indeed Kafka's intent, I think Kafka was wrong.  Perhaps it's just my own religious viewpoint, but I don't think the path to salvation is tedious or fraught with bureaucracy.

In any case, I'm glad to be done with this one and moving on!