Persons of Color Reading Challenge 2011

I've signed up again for the POC Reading Challenge.  I read 21 books for the challenge last year, so this year I'm going to sign up for level 5 (16-25 books).

As I noted in my wrap-up post for the 2010 challenge, I was disappointed that a large number of the books I read had protagonists of color but were written by white authors.  For this year, I'm only going to count books written by authors of color, though perhaps I'll include other books in a separate list.  I'm hoping this will help me to discover new authors!

Books read:
1. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
2. The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley
3. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami
4. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
5. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
6. Complications by Atul Gawande
7. Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
8. Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie
9. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
10. The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
11. Pym by Mat Johnson
12. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese 
13. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami 
14. River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh 
15. The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin 
16. Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling 
17. Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

Books by white authors with protagonists of color: (not counted toward challenge)
- Gardens of Water by Alan Drew
- Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
- The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
- Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

Summary: Bernard is a bit different in a world where social castes are determined before one is even born and social conditioning ensures stability and order.  He likes Lenina, and although "everybody belongs to everybody else" and multiple sexual partners are encouraged, he finds himself nervous to approach her.  He does eventually ask for a date, and they visit the reservation, a place separate and unconditioned, where they meet John, a "savage" born to a mother from Bernard's world.  This encounter leads to questions about the nature of happiness and stability.

Musings: I've done one of the most terrible jobs I think I've ever done summarizing the book above, but I think it's hard to describe the world of Brave New World accurately.  Although it takes place in a somewhat typical dystopian setting, the novel is especially compelling because of the way in which Huxley makes all of the world's structures logical--though still terrifying.  Happiness, or perhaps more accurately, contentedness, is the goal of Brave New World's society, and such happiness is created through the elimination of want and desire.  It's a world of immediate gratification, where everyone is given anything he/she wants at a moment's notice and any desire that can't be granted is conditioned away at a young age.  The concept that the world will be stable when everyone has what he/she wants is unassailable, and it makes some of the more outrageous practices in the novel, such as the lack of love relationships and the encouragement of promiscuity, also reasonable.

Brave New World really has two protagonists: Bernard and John.  Neither is content, and although Bernard seems the weaker of the two (he bemoans his alienation from others but also eagerly milks his later popularity), John "the savage" is really no better.  He demonizes Bernard and Lenina's existence and sees self-deprivation as a way to pureness, but he helps no one, including himself.

Huxley has created a world with no "good" options--the mindless acceptance of the majority of the people is obviously not desirable, but the "savage" land John comes from is given little attention and is not particularly praised either.  The lack of options is especially evident in the treatment of women.  In Bernard's world, bodies are simply objects for sexual consumption, but this seems especially true of women.  Women are described in terms of their physical attractiveness and are "had" by any man who wants.  On the other hand, John divides women completely into virgins and whores and uses their existence only as a means for his own self-deprivation.

I've read Brave New World a number of times now, and I still find it a compelling piece.  This time I did get a bit bored about half-way through, but I put it to the side and enjoyed finishing it a week or two later.  Even today I think it offers relevant commentary about the price of happiness and the pleasure of discontent.

***This book qualifies for the Back to the Classics Challenge (reread from high school/college category).

"Something Rotten" by Jasper Fforde

Summary: Thursday Next has led Jurisfiction, the policing department in Book World, for two years, and she is tired of it.  It's time to return to the real world, with her son Friday, and work at getting back her eradicated husband Landen.  But when Thursday returns, she has more than just her husband to worry about--Yorrick Kaine, a fictional character, is seeking to take over Britain, Goliath Corporation is hard at work turning itself into a recognized religion, and the world may end if Thursday can't get the Swindon Mallets croquet team to win the Superhoop.

Musings: Something Rotten is the fourth book in the Thursday Next series, and although there's nothing new here, the fourth installment of the series continues to be enjoyable.  Now that Thursday is back in the real world, there are somewhat fewer literary allusions, which I did miss.  However, Thursday is accompanied home by Hamlet, and it was fun to see his dithering and soliloquizing about his role and characterization.

Like in the other Thursday Next books, there's a couple dozen plot lines occurring simultaneously, but it's not difficult to keep everything straight.  I was happy to see some plot lines from previous books resolved or new dimensions given to old characters.

Something Rotten is as absurd as all Fforde's works, though I think this book may have overly-relied on absurdity for comic moments; I didn't find it nearly as funny as some of the others.  However, I was looking forward to Something Rotten as a light read, and it didn't disappoint.

- See my reviews of book one in the series, The Eyre Affair, book two, Lost in a Good Book, and book three, The Well of Lost Plots. 

"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

I totally missed it, but I celebrated my second blogging anniversary yesterday on January 10th.  Woot!

Summary: O'Brien's collection of fictional short stories cover his time in the Vietnam War, his relationships with his fellow soldiers, and the continuing presence the war has had in his and other's lives, even decades later.

Musings: I don't know why it took so long for me to read this 20th century classic, but I'm so glad I finally did.  O'Brien's novel is special not only for the stories it tells and its sense of intimate camaraderie with the reader, but for its reflection on the nature of truth in story telling.

I've found myself more and more compelled by this issue of why we write, the nature and importance (or lack thereof) of "truth" in writing, and the intricate relationship built between author and reader.  I've mentioned it before, but in Life of Pi the author Martel has a fabulous quote about fiction "twisting reality" to "bring out its essence," and O'Brien makes the same argument in The Things They Carried.  He makes this argument not only through the strength of his fictional-as-truth stories, but through his own reflections on the nature of his writing.  As O'Brien argues, this understanding of what constitutes "truth" is all the more important in war stories, since these are stories which have been so told and mythologized and dramatized since the beginning of human history that it's easy to overlook the complex, paradoxical effects such wars have on individuals and their (and our) ability to see things like we used to.  O'Brien writes, "In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself, and therefore it's safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true" (82).

It's the sense of "truth" and "reality" which pervades O'Brien's stories that makes them so compelling.  He writes and talks about the stories in such a way as to make you believe you are reading a memoir, and by the end, it's clear that The Things They Carried is a memoir--of his life and others'.  Even though the stories aren't true, the essence is there.

***This book qualifies for the Back to the Classics Challenge (wartime setting category).

"Ella Minnow Pea" by Mark Dunn

Summary: The island of Nollop is named after the famed inventor of the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," which uses all 26 letters of the alphabet.  The academic-minded inhabitants of the island are proud of their heritage until a day when a tile of the letter "z" ominously falls from the monument celebrating Nollop's accomplishment.  Nollop's council decides the felled letter is a sign from Nollop himself and quickly outlaw the usage of the fallen letter in written and oral communication.  As more letters begin to fall, the Nollopians find themselves further constrained in their use of language, and more and more people slip up, despite the severe consequences, including expulsion from Nollop.  Written in letters between the island's inhabitants, Ella Minnow Pea follows Nollopians desperate to save their island from letter eradication.

Musings: Dunn has created a cute concept in Ella Minnow Pea.  The gradual eradication of letters could easily become tiresome, but Dunn keeps the book short enough to maintain the reader's interest.  It's fun to see the change from early letters, which have free use of the alphabet or have only eradicated lesser-used letters like "z," to the final letters, which are written in difficult-to-decipher phonetic-like spellings using the few letters left to the Nollopians.

The story, of course, is a bit silly, though the extremes to which the council goes to enforce the rules (whippings and even some deaths!) seem somewhat out of place in what should be a light-hearted book.  In a book dedicated primarily to a conceit, there's not a lot in the way of character development (several people all of a sudden fall in love) or even real plot.

Nonetheless, Ella Minnow Pea is a fun book for lovers of language.

"Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson

Summary: Melinda is beginning her freshman year of high school as a total outcast with no friends.  Everyone hates her for calling the cops at a party over the summer, but none of them knows the real reason she called.  Feeling completely alone, Melinda retreats into herself and chooses to rarely speak until she slowly begins to find herself again.

Musings: I think I had put off reading Speak for so long because I was worried about it being overly depressing.  But while Speak addresses a teenager dealing with depression and rape, it's also a book that shows how life can be rebuilt, even after trauma.

What I liked best about Speak was how realistic is is.  With the exception of Melinda's rapist, the characters are multi-dimensional and neither pure good or evil.  Melinda is largely ignored by the students at school, rather than actively bullied, but there are people who are willing to get to know her--when she is able to put herself out there.  When Melinda's one friend in the beginning of the school year, Heather, "dumps" Melinda, she says that it's because Melinda is no fun and always depressed.  And while you feel bad for Melinda to experience such rejection, you know what Heather is saying is also true.  Even the teachers in the novel are well-rounded, none of them being giant insensitive jerks like you so often see in literature, but also few of them able to do much beyond the academic problems.

In creating realistic characters, Anderson exposes the way in which so much of the trauma teenagers face can be easily overlooked, leading to desperate teens who feel there is no one they can talk to.  Melinda's parents are especially guilty in this regard, as they rarely give Melinda the chance to talk about what she is feeling.

Melinda's recovery comes slowly, and she experiences no "magical" cure.  Best of all, there's not a new boyfriend who washes all the bad memories away.  Instead, Melinda finds strength through art, awareness of what she wants, and tentative steps towards new friendships.  Things aren't perfect when the book ends, but they are getting better.

My only disappointment in the novel was Melinda's dramatic confrontation with her rapist at the end.  Unlike the rest of the novel, it felt fake and unbelievable, and it provides Melinda vindication in a way few rape victims will ever experience.

Melinda's voice is authentic and compelling; she can be snarky and underestimate people in a way that many people can relate to.  The book is a quick read (I finished it in under two hours), and despite being nearly 12 years old, it doesn't feel dated at all.

***This book qualifies for the Back to the Classics Challenge (banned book category).

Back to the Classics Challenge 2011

Like last year, I want to choose challenges this year that help me to read beyond my "comfort zone," and the
Back to the Classics Challenge 2011 is perfect for that.  In compiling a potential to-read list, I noticed many books could qualify for any number of categories, so I know I'll have a lot of options.  (Some books are repeated on multiple lists, but I would only count them for one category)

Potential books to read:

1. A Banned Book
- Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

2. A Book with a Wartime Setting (can be any war)
- The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

3. A Pulitzer Prize (Fiction) Winner or Runner Up
- In Other Rooms, Other Wonders  by Daniyal Mueenuddin (runner-up 2010)

4. A Children's/Young Adult Classic
- The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
- The Pigman by Paul Zindel
- A Separate Peace by John Knowles

5. 19th Century Classic
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

6. 20th Century Classic
- On the Road by Jack Kerouac

7. A Book you think should be considered a 21st Century Classic

8. Re-Read a book from your High School/College Classes
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley