"The Stranger" by Albert Camus

Summary: Meursault's mother has just died.  He goes swimming with Marie.  While at the beach with friends, with the sun in his eyes, he shoots and kills a man.  He goes to prison and is sentenced to death.

Musings: My summary above has "spoiled" the book, but I really know of no way to provide an overview to The Stranger that would effectively convey the book's essence.  This is my second or third time reading the novel (I know I read it in high school, but I'm not sure if I also read it in college), and I'll admit my reason for choosing it was rather lazy: I'm one book short of completing the Books of the Century challenge, and The Stranger allowed me to finish the challenge easily, since it's so short.

The Stranger is really a "classroom" book, by which I mean I think it is best understood and explored in a critical literary environment.  It's an absurdist novel that is focused on the way in which individuals are molded--and, when resistant, judged--by arbitrary standards of society.  Meursault is a character focused on physical, not emotional needs, and he goes through life accordingly.  During his mother's wake, he thinks primarily of being sleepy or dizzy.  When he kills "the Arab," he does so not out of anger or anything else, but because the sun is in his eyes and has made him uncomfortable.  As a reader, we find him odd and his lack of attachment disturbing, but our judgment of him is turned on its head during his trial.

In the trial, the prosecutor attacks Meursault for failing to cry or show emotional distress at his mother's funeral.  His shooting of the Arab is all but forgotten, and he is condemned solely because he did not act in the expected manner of a bereaved son--a point that, of course, has nothing to do with the shooting.  Here the reader reacts against society and its judgment of Meursault, but it is too late: the jury sentences him to death.

Before the trial and later while waiting execution, Meursault is repeatedly exhorted by others to express remorse and turn to God.  Meursault refuses, and in the end comes into his own sort of peace as he "opened [him]self to the gentle indifference of the world" (122).  The others say Meursault will only find peace in God, but instead he finds peace in knowing that he does not matter and the world does not care.  I too found this reassuring--it means there is no set plan, set fate, or set "way" we should lead our lives.  This freedom gives each person who recognizes it the ability to truly live as he/she sees fit, though it's clear from the book that society tries hard to destroy this freedom.

As it's been years since I read the book for an assigned class, I don't know how standard my interpretation is, but I liked analyzing and thinking about the short but powerful novel.

***This book qualifies for the Books of the Century Reading Challenge.

"The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro

Summary: Mr. Stevens, an aging English butler, once served Lord Darlington at the height of the Lord's prominence, looking over a large house staff and overseeing events involving important political figures.  But Lord Darlington has been dead several years, and an American gentleman now owns the property.  When Stevens' American employer leaves for several weeks, he suggests Stevens take a holiday.   As Stevens takes a motoring trip, he looks back on his many years of service, facing the truth of his employer and his service.

Musings: Remains of the Day is probably one of the most thoughtfully characterized book I have ever read, and in this small novel, which is almost all introspection, I found myself more engrossed than in any action book I've read.

The Remains of the Day is a quiet novel, much like Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.  Its strength lies in the way Ishiguro absolutely makes you believe you are listening to a real English butler named Stevens.  Stevens is an absolutely convincing character, and because of this, his experiences are all the more heartbreaking.  Stevens is a man who has dedicated himself to executing his profession to perfection.  But this all-consuming dedication has been his biggest downfall.  In seeing himself as a butler above all else, and in holding himself to expectations higher than anyone else's, he has sacrificed relationships (with his father, a housekeeper named Miss Kenton), intellectual vigor, and enjoyment of life.  He has been a martyr for a cause no one but himself supports.  And this is all the more sad because Stevens refuses to acknowledge it; he stubbornly defends his choices, even though it's painfully obvious to the reader that his has not truly been a life well-spent.

Stevens narrates the novel in first person, and it's easy to want to empathize with him.  His dedication to his job is admirable, and he holds himself to high standards.  But it's soon apparent that though Stevens is good at his job, he is not good at being human.  He is inconsiderate and uncaring of others' feelings; he rejects friendly conversation, and he holds no room for human fallacy--except in the case of his employer, for whom he mostly overlooks mistakes.  He is someone who, at this point in his life, has no friends, no family, and years dedicated to an employer now despised by most.

The Remains of the Day is a beautiful novel, and one I would highly recommend.

***This book qualifies for the POC Reading Challenge and the Books of the Century Challenge.

"A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf

Summary: Woolf's essay on "women and fiction," in which she argues that in order for women to create, they need an income of five hundred pounds a year and a room in which they can write.

Musings: I somehow never was exposed to Woolf's classic essay before, and I regret that, though I think this reading came at a perfect time in my life.  I'm not a terribly observant reader of most books, and I had to force myself to highlight, comment, and reflect when reading assigned works in college.  However, as I read A Room of One's Own for the first time, I cursed the fact that I was reading a library copy.  I was dying to mark lines and jot down my thoughts as I read.  I turned over particular sentences in my head, read them aloud to my husband, and reread whole sections.  I had to pull out a notepad in order to copy down all the gems I wanted to remember.  In short, this fabulous feminist essay not only exposes the state of women in 1928, when Woolf was writing, but it also sheds significant light on the fight for equality between the sexes today.

Woolf's primary purpose in the essay is to address the lack of women writers throughout history and to understand what is necessary for a person to create fiction.  One of her most potent arguments is that a person must have financial security in order to create. She notes, "Intellectual freedom depends upon material things.  Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom.  And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time.  Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves.  Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry" (106).  But it is not only the lack of financial means that have kept women from writing.  Woolf argues that is is also the lack of history of women's writing from which to draw on and the lack of social support.  Even for poor men, the world says, "Write if you choose; it makes no difference to me," but to women, "the world said with a guffaw, Write?  What's the good of your writing?" (52).  Woolf recognizes the popular conception that truly great writers produce regardless of circumstance, but she breaks down that false ideal easily.

A Room of One's Own is set during an interesting point in history, a time in which women had recently won the right to vote and were increasingly allowed access to wider range of educational and vocational opportunities.  But, greater equality also results in a stronger backlash.  Life is difficult, Woolf says, and self-confidence can come most easily by asserting one's superiority over another.  So even as women were given more rights, their work and abilities were also being increasingly disparaged.  Woolf argues, "Possibly when the professor insisted a little too emphatically upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority, but with his own superiority.  That was what he was protecting rather hot-headedly and with too much emphasis, because it was a jewel to him of the rarest price. ...  How can we generate this imponderable quality [of self-confidence], which is yet so invaluable, most quickly?  By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself" (34-35).

As I mentioned above, many of Woolf's arguments still hold sway today.  Women still make, on average, less than men, and it is a lack of financial freedom that hampers greater equality.  Although there are many more opportunities for women artists, there are still many arenas in which women lack a history and support network, and as a result, women are underrepresented.  Even Woolf's discussion of the way in which women in literature are only depicted in relationship to men is still evident in many popular stories (just see the continued use of the "Bechdel test").

I had read the introduction to my edition of the essay first, which was a mistake, because it made me think Woolf's piece would be difficult and indecipherable, when in fact I found it especially accessible and pointed.  A Room of One's Own is certainly a piece I want to return to, and I also hope to try some of Woolf's fiction in the near future.

***This book qualifies for the GLBT Reading Challenge 2010 and the Books of the Century Challenge.

"The Shipping News" by E. Annie Proulx

Summary: After the death of his promiscuous and cruel wife, Quoyle is left--lost and timid as always--with his two daughters, Bunny and Sunshine.  When his aunt suggests moving back to Newfoundland, where the family originated, Quoyle agrees.  In Newfoundland Quoyle begins working for The Gammy Bird, a local newspaper, and slowly begins to realize love can exist without misery.

Musings: The Shipping News is a much-heralded book, having won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, so going in I had certain expectations.  And while The Shipping News was not a book I loved, it is a book with a well-crafted locale and characters, and I can see the merit in the novel.

Proulx's novel has a jilted style characterized by fragments and phrases, as well as long catalogs of lists.  Although it reinforced a certain mood, I found the wording, at times, distracting and distancing.

Furthermore, as seems to be popular with literary fiction these days, the protagonist, Quoyle, is a rather lethargic and pathetic figure when the book begins.  He has certainly been beaten down, both by his father and his wife, but his sluggish path through life made it difficult for me to be interested.

However, when the book's setting switches to Newfoundland, both Quoyle and I began to perk up.  The home of Quolye's ancestors is able to revive something in Quoyle, as he has the space to discover his love for his children, his care for a mother of a child with special needs, and his aptitude for the newspaper business.  Quoyle's shift in attitude is also precipitated by the presence of a cast of interesting and diverse characters.  In small, almost negligible moments, the reader learns about each character's past and present.

The Shipping News is not a book with a clear climax or a standard story arc.  The book follows the lives of Quoyle and the people around him in an ordinary way, and it is only when the reader reaches the end that he or she realizes the change and development that has occurred over the last three hundred pages.

***This book qualifies for the Books of the Century Reading Challenge.

"Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut

Summary: Dwayne Hoover is a well-to-do car salesman who is about go to crazy.  His insanity will be set off by an encounter with Kilgore Trout, a prolific and completely unknown science-fiction writer who has, by chance, been invited to participate in the Arts Festival in Midland City.  In classic Vonnegut, these two men and other characters will meet and exist... and so on....

Musings: Although I continue to fail to "get" Vonnegut, I still quite enjoy his work.  No other book of his has fit together for me the way Slaughterhouse-Five did, but the novels are always stimulating, if nothing else.  I did like Breakfast of Champions better than Cat's Cradle (and much better than Hocus Pocus, which I couldn't even finish!) because it was more linear and the repetition served to enhance the narrative.  Breakfast of Champions also includes frequent drawings, which were fun.

But, alas, what to say about the story?  Vonnegut highlights the mundane by making commonalities seem new--explaining how mammals called chickens become Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken, for example.  The concept of people as robots, acting the way they are programmed to act (both literally and metaphorically), is repeated throughout the novel and also serves to emphasize humans' inability to act out of of self- and society-prescribed roles.  The continued emphasis on characters' races and male characters' uh--sizes--also play into the way in which we try to artificially categorize those we know.

Like all of Vonnegut's works, Breakfast of Champions is bizarre, profane, absurd, and very readable.  You're never bored and always left wondering.

***This book qualifies for the Books of the Century Reading Challenge.

"Herland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Summary: In this feminist utopian satire, three early 20th century men set out and "discover" Herland: an isolated land in existence for 2,000 years and comprised of only women.  Free of male and "traditional" societal influence, the society has flourished.  The three men--the narrator Van (a thoughtful sociologist), Terry (a misogynist unable to accept the women's strengths), and Jeff (who idolizes the women)--struggle to understand the perfect world the women have crafted and acknowledge the failures of their own society.

Musings: I first read this book for an amazing course I took at Duke University during a summer program for high school students.  The class was on "Island Utopian Literature" and focused on various authors' conceptions of an ideal world and the problematic aspects of crafting a perfect society.  Feeling a bit of resurgence in my feminism (not that it left, but perhaps became complacent), I decided to see what a reread would offer.

Gilman's work is a fascinating study, both for its critique of gender norms and for the insight it provides into early 20th-century feminism.  It's highly problematic from a modern perspective (particularly in its assumptions about sexuality), but wholly enjoyable.

Through a history I won't get into here (but the book provides), Herland became an isolated community of only women.  Instead of dying out, however, one woman developed philoprogenetiveness--the ability to self-produce a child.  In this way the society was able to continue throughout many generations.  Through communal work and effort, the women achieve a society that is free of poverty, disease, and violence.  Because Herland is founded on a "virgin" birth, it is a society centered around the deification of motherhood.  Again, from a contemporary perspective I find this problematic (Ann Lane, in the introduction, notes that "Gilman seems to assume that the desire for motherhood, thought not the ability to be a good mother, is inherent in the female condition" [xiii]).  Nevertheless, the way in which Gilman frames motherhood is progressive for its time.  Motherhood does not involve personal brooding and self-sacrifice for one's own child or carry associations of "staying at home with the kids" as opposed to completing other also fulfilling work.  Instead, in Herland, childrearing is shared and valued above all else, thus giving both responsibility and freedom to every woman.

It's easy to be pretty cynical about the perfection and lack of struggle the women have in the novel, and I think that continued pessimism while reading can be a distraction at times (it's hard to take everything in if you're constantly assuming it's impossible).  And I would probably agree with Terry, who argues unsuccessfully that "If there is no struggle, there is no life" (99).  After all, can you really experience joy without also experiencing grief?  However, one of the strengths of Gilman's text is the way in which Herland's perfection is used to expose the fallacies and weaknesses of the men's (our) society.  Gilman is especially adept as unmasking the illogical nature of our gendered assumptions.  Through Van's documentation of the questions the Herland women ask, Gilman breaks down the ideas that women are "weak" and "illogical" or that "male" institutions like war and poverty are inevitable.  She does this in a way that is often funny, which gives the book an unexpected lightness.

One of my strongest reactions against the book came in Gilman's depiction of sexuality.  As Lane notes in the introduction, Gilman operates from the idea that "sexual freedom led to another form of female subordination" (xvi).  Because of this, Gilman has completely removed female sexuality from Herland.  According to the novel, without men, women would have no "sex feeling"!  The women of Herland are completely asexual and, even when they marry the three men (for the purpose of bisexual mating), they are unable to see the purpose of sex beyond conception.  I loved that the women refused to consent to sex with the men when they truly did not understand the need or desire it, but the heteronormativity and the assumption that sexuality is solely a male domain are clearly problematic.

Herland is an excellent read, not as a solution for modern problems, but as a primary source case-study for early 20th century feminism and socialism.  It's also easy to see the kind of highly gendered-biased world Gilman was writing in and admire her strength to defy conventional roles and challenge dominant assumptions.

***This book qualifies for the Books of the Century Reading Challenge.

"East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

Summary: Brothers Adam and Charles Trask were always opposites--Adam the beloved "good" son destined by his father to be a soldier and Charles the son consumed by anger and darkness.  Cathy Ames was evil since birth, and when she enters the brothers' world, their lives are thrown into even more turmoil.  East of Eden follows the Trask brothers and Cathy's sons Cal and Aron as they attempt to move beyond the way in which their family has defined them.

Musings: This book was chosen by our sophomore English teachers as their assigned summer reading, so I decided to read it myself to try to counteract the inevitable complaining that will come from previous students at the start of the school year.  And the complaints will rest on one basic and valid point--the novel is 600 pages long.

As the sophomore English teachers pointed out to my students this past school year, East of Eden is a very readable book.  Despite some excess of scenery description in the beginning, the narrative moves quickly, focusing on events and characters' experiences.  The biblical myth of Cain and Abel loosely guides the story, and it's interesting to see the ways in which the brothers--first Charles and Adam and later Cal and Aron--struggle with their own self-imposed images of themselves as "good" or "bad."  But because of the biblical allusions, the characters sometimes felt one-dimensional, and I couldn't quite identify with their feelings.  Cathy Ames is probably the most interesting character, and I liked the ambiguity in the end of whether she is pure evil or not.

The dialogue is a bit stilted, being for the purpose more of philosophical musings than real human conversations.  Nonetheless, I loved the character of Lee, Adam's Chinese servant, as he serves as a moral compass for the Trask family.

I've been involved in an institute for school teachers on the history of religion in America this month, and so it was meaningful to me to also be reading a book that relies on understandings of religion.  Perhaps the book would be best understood in terms of a biblical study, which is something I didn't really set out to do.

I enjoyed the book, but, in the end, I think I'll quietly agree with the complaining students next year.  East of Eden is far too long for a summer read and far too philosophical (for the length) to hold the attention of fifteen-year-olds.  However, I'd certainly recommend it to fans of Steinbeck, strong narratives, or biblical allegories.

***This book qualifies for the Books of the Century Reading Challenge.

"A Room With a View" by E.M. Forster

Summary: In the British world of social niceties, young Lucy Honeychurch vacations in Italy with her intolerable and priggish cousin Miss Bartlett.  Although proper conventions rule the day, Lucy finds herself immersed in something different in Italy and in the young George Emerson, whose lack of social standing causes him to be looked down upon.  When Lucy returns to England, she must make a choice: protection with her fiance Cecil or truth and beauty with George.

Musings: A Room With a View is an appealing novel of breaking tradition and convention for something else, whatever that something else might be.  Its focus on manners and rudeness reminded me a lot of Austen, although, in comparison, Forster's book is a relatively quick 242-page read.  Forster's novel also goes farther in challenging standard protocols of propriety, particularly in terms of gender roles.  Although George plays a role in Lucy's transformation, the real change comes from inside herself as she recognizes that she does not want to be with someone whose principle aim is to protect and mold her.

Lucy's internal wanderings were often a bit vague for me, but I think that's in keeping with her character.  She's young and dissatisfied and believes the world can offer more--but she doesn't really know what that means.  The best she can do is challenge herself.  George was sweet but somewhat ill-defined, and I didn't understand his attraction as fully.

The novel has a slightly confidential tone, as the narrator gently mocks and chides his characters both for their snobbery and their illusions of grandeur.  I especially liked quirky details such as the naming of chapters, which include the title "The Reverend Arthur Beebe, The Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive Them" for chapter 6 and the meaningful title of "Twelfth Chapter" for chapter 12.

Towards the end of the book there is much talk of being muddied in one's feelings, and that sense of muddiness did pervade a lot of the more philosophical musings of the novel, but A Room With a View is, like its protagonist, a sweet and innocent look at the desires of youth.

***This book qualifies for the Books of the Century Challenge.

"Dune" by Frank Herbert

Summary: 15-year-old Paul Atreides has just moved to the planet Arrakis with his father, the Duke Leto Atreides, and his mother, the Lady Jessica, a Bene Gesserit--a woman trained in secret skills.  Arrakis is a desert planet, valuable only for its addictive spice.  Duke Leto has been granted rulership over the planet by the Emperor, but the family is betrayed and the planet overrun by the Atreides' greatest enemy: the Harkonnens.  Paul and his mother must flee and they join a group of Fremen, the blue-eyed natives of Arrakis whose ways are largely a mystery.  But even among the Fremen Paul is special, a man with powers beyond all others as a result of training and careful breeding by the Bene Gesserit, and many believe Paul is the Lisan al-Gaib, an off-world prophet who will lead the Fremen to victory and prosperity.

Musings: Although I'm a fan of science-fiction, I rarely read "high" science-fiction, a category into which Dune clearly belongs.  But I thought I should at least be familiar with what is probably the greatest classic of the category.

Dune does have some of the trappings of high sci-fi (or fantasy) that often turn me off: numerous strange names, a focus on politics over individual stories, and excessive and rigid cultural rituals.  Compared to most of the books I read, I found it slow-moving, and it took me considerably longer to finish than most fiction.  Paul's abilities are so far beyond any human that he is impossible to identify with.  So much time is spent on his (and frequently his mother's) amazing powers (particularly their Bene Gesserit skills of observation) that I just became less impressed.  I did enjoy the stories of side characters such as Gurney Halleck and the Fremen Chani more.

Nonetheless, Herbert has created a fully-fleshed world, and the details of Arrakis are perhaps the most interesting part of the book.  In the desert planet, water is the highest commodity available, and all aspects of life, from death to marriage, revolve around the conservation of water.  The Fremen's adaptation to the harshness of the planet is particularly fascinating. 

The novel was written in 1965, but many of its themes are just as pressing today.  Although the continual politicking was not my thing, it does work to emphasize the tensions and conflicts of this planet and the way in which those who would rule well cannot gain power just by being good, but by playing the game--something that's much more true to life than most sci-fi books.  Dune also discusses the confluence of politics and religion and the way in which one can be exploited by the other; it's another very timely issue and one I found interesting.

Those who enjoy books on an epic, grand-scale nature will most appreciate Dune.  It's certainly similiar in some ways to the Lord of the Rings trilogy although Dune lacks the lovable and fallible Frodo to center the story.  However, Herbert's world building is far above many contemporary works, and I can see why this is such a classic.

***This book qualifies for the Books of the Century Challenge.

"We Die Alone" by David Howarth

Summary:  During World War II, a group of twelve Norwegians set sail from England under disguise of a fishing boat.  Their goal is to land in German-occupied Norway where they will train local citizens and attempt sabotage on a German base.  When they are betrayed early on, the group is attacked by Germans, and only one man--Jan Baalsrud--manages to get away.  We Die Alone is the true story of Jan's two-month escape to neutral Sweden.  He is aided along the way by individuals, families, and entire villages of Norwegians who risk everything to help one man survive.

Musings: This book was brought to my attention by a New York Times article about Norwegians' Winter Olympic performance ("The Hard and the Soft," David Brooks, 3/1/10).  The book was described there, and in nearly everything I else I read about it, to be a story that seems nearly impossible.  And as many others have said, Jan's journey is so amazing that a movie of the book would seem far-fetched, but it's completely true.

It is an amazing story full of coincidences, chance, close calls, and near-fatal encounters.  But throughout, the resounding feeling is one of human kindness.  Whole towns risked their lives to save Jan--one man--when at any moment German awareness of their actions could mean death.  And, of course, equally amazing is Jan's resolve.  He lives where no person could possibly do so--through being buried, unconscious, in an avalanche while snow blind to surviving for nearly a week without food in a crevice by a rock.  He perseveres through it all and emerges with only the loss of his toes.

This book was published in 1955 by David Howarth, an officer at a navy base from which Jan and his companions sailed.  I loved Howarth's tone throughout the book; I suppose it had a bit of a "quaint" feel to it.  So many stories today are full of sensationalism, but Howarth was determined to focus on the determination of Jan and those who helped him.  In a short chapter Howarth acknowledges what happened to the other members of Jan's crew; those that weren't killed immediately were inhumanely executed, and several others were barbarically tortured.  However, Howarth doesn't go into those grisly details: "The details of these executions are known, but they are not a thing to be written or read about" (67).  Howarth doesn't skim over the truth, even when it's unpleasant, but I appreciated his restraint here.

We Die Alone is a gripping nonfiction read, perfect for people who tend to shy away from the genre thinking it will be boring.  The pace is quick, and I enjoyed the insight into Jan, the people who helped him, and Norwegian life at the time.

On a last note: The cover pictured above is not the cover of the book I read.  I have some annoying dedication to only posting the image of the cover I personally read, but when I picked this book up from the library, I had to laugh at how terribly cheesy the cover was.  I didn't want to use it as the post picture since I was afraid it would turn people off to a great book!  The copy I read appears to be from the original printing (1955), so I don't blame them for what would today be a terrible cover, but I was also shocked by the state of the book.  I love library copies, and most I've borrowed are in great condition, but I have never seen such a dying library book before; I think the yellowing scotch tape and the mystery drink spilled over the inside pages were my favorite part.  I'll be optimistic and say it's worn from many much-loved readings.  Anyway, here's a photo of the copy I read as well (I blocked out the name of the library at bottom). 

***This book qualifies for the Books of the Century reading challenge.

"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

Summary: Guy Montag is a fireman: he burns books and the houses of people who illegally possess books.  But when Montag's wife attempts suicide and he meets a young woman next door who takes time to think, Montag finds himself questioning the state of the world for the first time.  Risking his own safety, Montag begins to read and consider changing his life.

Musings: Fahrenheit 451 is, of course, a classic, and I first read it in high school.  I must have read it since then as well, since the plot was very familiar, but I had forgotten how short is was (a brief 165 pages!).  Looking at it now, it seems a bit dogmatic, and the science fiction feels well-trod.  Of course, when it was published in 1953 that would not have been the case, but it's eerie how "done" this type of story felt to me.  That's certainly testament to the novel's influence over the past fifty-plus years.

At the end of the book, Montag joins a group of "vagabonds" storing up fragments of books in their minds, hoping one day the world will be ready to write down and distribute the books again.  Although the memorization is intended only as a storage tool, it can't help but operate as a social tool as well, for if Montag wants to "read" a book, he must listen to it recited by another person.  It brought to mind the nature of reading today, which is such a solitary pursuit.  Thinking of the long oral tradition in many cultures (i.e. the Odyssey) or even in some novels (i.e. the Singers in the Libyrinth), it's interesting to consider what has been gained and lost in books' paper backings.

I liked that the novel acknowledges that although there is much greatness to be had in books, books, by themselves, are not some kind of magic.  They are a tool for expression of ideas, emotions, and experiences, but they are not the only tool.  Faber tells Montag, "It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books... Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget... The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us" (82-83).  This reminded me of a fabulous post by Justine Larbalestier, in which she argues, "I don’t think reading a novel is morally superior to baking a cake, swimming, dancing, or gardening, or any other fun activity a teen or anyone else could do with their time. Best of all is to do all those activities."  So I suppose it's funny for me, as an English teacher and avid reader, to say this, but I believe what's important is engaging with the world, with others, with thought, and with life, rather than the medium by which that happens.  I find I get a lot of praise for my reading habit, but I sometimes feel it's given unjustly.  Perhaps I'm using reading as a way to avoid doing life.  This isn't meant as a slam on myself or on anyone else, but rather my attempt to grapple with the ways we live and the ways others value how we live.

Bradbury has an interesting coda where he criticizes what I suppose he would term as "hyper-political correctness."  He complains, for example, about a school that balked at performing one of his plays because it had no female characters.  Bradbury suggests the people in charge of the play didn't object, per se, but rather that they feared performing the play because "the ERA ladies on campus would descend with ball-bats if the drama department even tried [to perform it]" (178).  I completely support free speech and am adamantly against the sanitization and censorship Bradbury describes (happening most often to his works when placed in texts intended for use in schools--kids aren't going to drop dead if they see "damn" printed.  Or even "f***").  And I would never argue an author shouldn't include/omit whatever characters, issues, locations, ideas he/she wishes.  However, I do think a consuming audience also has a right to say, "We don't want to read pieces that aren't representative of our society," or, "We don't want to read pieces that propagate racism, sexism, or homophobia."  You can write/speak what you wish, and I have that same right as a reader/audience member.  Of course, it's never that easy, and there's clearly a level of push and pull; the activist blogs I read will frequently suggest writing to and protesting an offensive person while I think Bradbury would suggest that if you are offended, then write your own.  Because of the unequal nature of society, I don't know that the "write your own" is always feasible, but I'm not sure spending time protesting the crap of obvious and devoted bigots is a good choice either.  (Note: I'm not saying Bradbury is a bigot; just thinking about the concept broadly here.)

So I've said very little about Fahrenheit 451 itself, but I think because the book was already so familiar, my mind wandered into offshoots more frequently than it does with books that are new to me.  I think it's an important classic that should still be read, particularly by students who often are unaware of the issue of censorship.  I also have to give some love to Bradbury's devotion to libraries; probably 95% of the books I read are from the library, and I truly believe in their importance.

***This book qualifies for the Books of the Century Challenge.

"The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck

Summary: Set in pre-revolutionary China, The Good Earth follows the poor farmer Wang Lung and his dutiful slave wife O-Lan.  From humble beginnings and the brink of starvation and death, Wang Lung brings himself and his family into prosperity and riches.  Wang Lung remains committed to his land and his family above all else, but as he ages, he finds the wealth does not bring him as much satisfaction as he had hoped.

Musings:  The Good Earth is my first book for the Books of the Century Challenge.  The novel was the number one fiction bestseller in 1931, the year of its publication, and it also appears under the "critically acclaimed and historically significant" category for that year.  Although my husband read the novel in high school, I was never exposed to it and picked it up because the title sounded familiar, even though I had no idea what the book was about.  I think I had some vague notion of it being along the lines of a Barbara Kingsolver novel (oops), so I was surprised when it was instead about the rise and fall of a Chinese farmer.

The novel has an interesting place in history.  Buck, a white woman born in West Virginia, spent the majority of her life, including her childhood, in China.  That she wrote a novel from the point of view of a Chinese man caused some controversy at the time, and I tried to keep its authorial origin in mind as I read.  In the '30s this novel was most Americans' only glimpse into life in China, and undoubtedly Buck has only portrayed one view of Chinese life at the time.  Nonetheless, I did not find the characters to be caricatures, although I wonder what effect some of the practices (polygamy, feet binding, the favoring of male children) would have had on the American audience.  In any case, the novel must be more evenhanded than the movie version, made in 1937, which has a white cast playing the Chinese characters.

Wang Lung, the protagonist, is a serious and committed man, and he is largely successful in life through his diligence and luck.  He is to be admired for his dedication and achievements where others have failed, but his greatness weakness is his pride.  Shame over his low-bred country origins cause him to lose sight of what he truly loves, which is his land.  In turn, the pride, but not the love of the soil, is passed on to his sons.  He leaves a legacy behind, but not one that he most wants.

O-Lan is a significantly less-explored character than Wang Lung, primarily because the story is told from Wang-Lung's point of view.  Despite economically managing the household, bearing him three sons, and famously returning to work in the fields hours after giving birth, O-Lan is given little thought by Wang Lung.  Her diligence and thriftiness when they are starving and her quick stealing are largely the reasons for Wang Lung's future success, but he is blinded by social expectations of women at that time and fails to see his wife.  He praises himself for not beating or berating her as others do, but she is never granted a place as a person.  The reader, for the most part, fails to see her as more than an extraordinarily capable, but overlooked, wife.

The deeply rooted and pervasive sexism evidenced by the characters is present throughout the novel, and very little is done by the characters to challenge it, although Buck clearly is sympathetic to the women.  Another teacher I know has a great term for judging texts of a certain era by modern standards--retrojecting--and, truthfully, I had a difficult time balancing recognizing the realities of the time with my personal sense of injustice for the ways in which many women suffered.

The novel is written surprisingly simply.  The book is clearly famous for the story it tells, rather than any particular strength of writing style or depth of meaning.  Although set in China, its themes are largely universal: sexism, inter-generational conflict, class conflict, the effects of pride and shame.  Although I felt little connection to any of the characters, the narrative swept me quickly along.

I know this was a high school classic for many years, but I don't know how regularly it is taught today.  I would imagine there are stronger options now, but it would be interesting to compare the novel to one written by a Chinese author set in the same time period. The Good Earth might also be an interesting way to explore Americans' views of China during the early part of the 20th century.

***This book qualifies for the Books of the Century Challenge, the POC Reading Challenge, and the TwentyTen Reading Challenge ("Older Than You" category).

Books of the Century Challenge

One of my blogging goals for this year was to participate in reading challenges when they would encourage me to read things I normally wouldn't. The first challenge I signed up for, while fun, is pretty achievable without trying. The Books of the Century challenge, however, looks like a great one for me because it really will be a challenge--but it's something I want to do.

Books of the Century Challenge  

(condensed from challenge website): The challenge is based on Daniel Immerwahr's The Books of the Century website. Immerwhar has compiled a list for each year of the 20th Century based on:

1. The top ten bestsellers in fiction, as recorded by Publishers Weekly;
2. The top ten bestsellers in nonfiction, also as recorded by Publishers Weekly;
3. The main selections of the Book-of-the-Month Club, founded in 1926;
4. "Critically acclaimed and historically significant books, as identified by consulting various critics' and historians' lists of important books."

Although I've been reading a lot of young adult and contemporary stuff recently, I don't want to forgo all the "classics."  While these books only represent a narrow range of literature, they also have affected our current understanding of literature in many important ways.  Besides, I also want to be able to talk "canonical literature parlor talk" with the best of the English teachers!  What's interesting about these lists is that they include both popular books and historically significant books. 

I'm going to participate at the Popular Literary Culture 401 level, which requires participants to read one book from each decade on the list.  I went ahead and listed some reading possibilities below.  I had to rely mostly on books I'd vaguely heard of or read before, so it will be interesting to see how I like the books once I actually sit down with them.

1900s: completed!
E. M. Forster, A Room with a View (1908)

1910s: completed!
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915)

1920s: completed!
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)  

1930s: completed!
Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth (1931)

1940s: completed!
Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942)

1950s: completed!
John Steinbeck, East of Eden (1952)
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
David Howarth, We Die Alone (1955)

1960s: completed!
Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)

1970s: completed!
Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions (1973)

1980s: completed!
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day (1989)

1990s: completed!
E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News (1993)