Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West-Gregory Maguire
How I found this book: God, his uncle, his pet dog, and the divine dust bunny told me I should read this…oh and everyone else too. The way people carried on, I assumed I’d have to be stupid not to read it.
Setting: L. Frank Baum’s fantasy world of Oz, in the period before Dorothy’s arrival from Kansas.
Main Characters:
Elphaba: The Wicked Witch of the West from the original book series, she is a little green girl, who is awkward, strange, and allergic to water. She is bright, opinionated, and has a keen sense of what is right and wrong in the world. Though she studies natural science at the University of Shiz, she later studies sorcery, becoming a witch. She grows up to be a revolutionary, standing against the tyrannical rule of the Wizard of Oz.
Galinda/Glinda: A pampered, upper class girl who is Elphaba’s roommate at the University of Shiz. She is at first contemptuous of Elphaba, but eventually comes to befriend the strange green girl and to become empathetic with her cause. She studies sorcery, and will later be known to readers of the original story as the Good Witch of the North.
Nessarose: Elphaba’s half-sister, she is as charming and enigmatic as her sister is not, despite being born with no arms. She too ends up studying sorcery, and inherits the title that was rightly her sisters as that of the Eminent Thropp. She also owns the magical slippers, first created by her father, then enchanted by Glinda to allow her to walk normally as her lack of arms affects her balance. She is known to readers of the original stories as the Wicked Witch of the East, and is killed accidentally by Dorothy when the tornado dumps Dorothy’s house on her.
Fiyero: A Winkie Prince who attended university with Elphaba. Though married to another, he later has an affair with Elphaba, but is murdered by the Wizard’s secret police. His death will send Elphaba into deep despondency and affect her outlook on life.
Doctor Dillamond: An Animal professor at the University of Shiz, (he happens to be a Goat), he is keen on proving that there is no difference between Animals and Humans, and is looking for a scientific basis for Animal rights. He is brutally murdered, thus starting Elphaba’s long journey towards justice for Animals and others in Oz.
Madame Morrible: The head of Crage Hall, where the girls attend school, she is quite openly both a supporter of the Wizard and his anti-Animal sentiment. She has some sort of mysterious role in the lives of the girls, but it isn’t made particularly clear. She dies of natural causes before Elphaba has a chance to kill her for the murder of Doctor Dillamond
Plot: Elphaba is a little green girl, raised by a religious zealot father, and her dead mother’s nurse. In a time of great turmoil in Oz, Elphaba grows up to attend university, meeting the pretty and socially mobile Galinda, who is studying to become a witch. Though the awkward Elphaba and the self-centered Galinda do not initially get along, Elphaba’s independence and her since of justice bring Galinda around, especially when the pretty girl’s own life is effected by the social injustices instigated by the Wizard of Oz. The girl’s go to the Emerald City to try and attempt to confront the Wizard on what they have seen, but when they meet with resistance, Elphaba decides to rebel. Leaving Glinda, (she’s now changed her name), she takes to the life of a revolutionary. Years later, while living in secret in the Emerald City, she crosses paths with her old university friend, Fiyero. The two embark on an affair, (Fiyero is married), and for a time Elphaba is happy. But it is cut short when the Wizard’s secret police, searching for Elphaba, murder Fiyero. Grief-stricken, she flees, first to a mauntuary, (a nunnery), then to Fiyero’s family compound, Elphaba struggles to both find herself again and to find her purpose. While she never stops standing against the Wizard, and takes up the cause of Animal rights, the book ends with her predictable death ‘accidentally’ at the hands of Dorothy.
Themes:
Persecution and Justice: Elphaba is a girl who sees much persecution because of the color of her skin. Because of this, she is stoutly against such behavior in others, and takes to the cause of saving the Animals, the talking beasts of Oz. They are persecuted more and more under the rule of the mysterious and cruel Wizard, (ironically who was himself persecuted in our world). Elphaba’s cause becomes the ruling passion of her life, to remove the evil rule of the Wizard and to bring about what is right.
Good and Evil: One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Maguire questions the roots of evil. Is evil based on the perspective and perceptions of the storyteller? Is evil something that’s inherent at birth, that one must struggle against or overcome? Is performing an act of great evil in the course of seeking justice outweighed by the fact that it serves the greater good? Is anyone ever really evil, or are they just ‘misunderstood’. Though these questions aren’t ever satisfactorily answered in the book, (and nor do I think they were meant to be), they are essential questions everyone brings up and discusses. The nature of the book is questioning ‘what is evil’?
Every book sucks somewhere: Personally, I found this one of the more difficult books for me to read and engage in, which disappointed me greatly as everyone has been so ga-ga over it for so long. I had perhaps a case of over-hype, because I was really looking forward to reading it, and was upset that it wasn’t nearly as good as everyone led me to believe.
I think my first sucky point is that to really get what is going on here, you have to have an extensive pre-knowledge of the world of Oz. Maguire spends no time going back and setting the stage for you because he’s working on the premise of another man’s world. That’s fine, but I haven’t read the Oz books since I was a small child. Twenty years means I’ve forgotten most of it. Much of the socio-political setting he cleverly creates, (and I will admit it’s quite good), is only understandable if you’ve read all the books and know them well. And frankly, I found that far too distracting.
Maguire’s writing style leaves a lot to be desires, neither fanciful like Baum’s, nor completely cutting and realistic, it lies somewhere in between, and it makes it difficult for me to settle on which. At times I get into the fanciful nature of it, at times the bite, but when they switch abruptly, it’s hard for me to remain interested. His dialogue tends to be rather stilted in many places, his conversations awkward and often disjointed. They lack the natural flow that helps you follow exactly what is going on.
What did I like: I liked the creative approach to the story, the unique twist that Maguire takes with a very traditional child’s tale. I think it’s a brilliant idea if nothing else.
Rate this wormy book: I rate this book as a LITTLE WORM. If you are a huge fan of Oz, can get past Maguire’s writing style, and get over the disjointed flow of the book, give it a read. But if you just want to read it because it’s popular right now, save yourself the effort. Spend a little extra money and go see the wildly popular musical that’s based on it. I hear that the musical is better and a lot of fun. Get the soundtrack of the original cast...only cause I love Kristin Chenoweth's voice and highly recommend her to everyone.
I'd kill to see the shows with Taye Diggs as Fiyero, not only because he's really married to the actress who was playing Elphaba at the time, but God...he's hot!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Riven Rock
Riven Rock-T.C. Boyle
How I heard about it: Two places really, my friend Megan suggested it for my book club, while my LA History Professor, Eric Avila, suggested one of this guy’s other books for his class. So it sort of joined together, as if destiny wanted me to read this book.
Setting: Santa Barbara, California, early 20th century.
Main Characters:
Katherine Dexter McCormack: A noted female scientist and first female graduate from MIT, Katherine is extremely intelligent and loves her damaged husband, Stanley greatly. She stands by his side throughout their long marriage, seeking both a cure for him, as well as involving herself in the growing issues of women’s rights.
Stanley McCormack: One of the heirs to Cyrus McCormack’s famous fortune, Stanley suffers from intense schizophrenia that manifests in a deep sexual violence and hatred of women. He is forced to be secluded from his wife and other female members of his family and society, and is locked for much of his life in his home of Riven Rock in California, (once the home of his schizophrenic sister).
Eddie O’Kane: Stanley’s head nurse, all he desires is to find fortune and sunshine in California’s fabled orange groves. Instead he finds a failed marriage and a fiery tempered Italian girl who make his life difficult, all the while he serves his employer Stanley faithfully.
Themes:
Mental Illness: It’s a horror to think how mental illness was treated in the past. In the beginning of the 20th century we were only begging to make the teeniest strides into the minimal understanding we even have now today, and by comparison it makes it hard for us to see Stanley’s plight. It’s heartbreaking to watch a man as charming and brilliant as Stanley fall into catatonic states where he is unable to move or eat. We don’t know what causes schizophrenia, or even if it can be cured, but the analogy of his home, Riven Rock, shows best the literal ‘split’ in Stanley’s mind. The estate is named for a large rock that is split by a tree growing on it, the act of life splitting it, much as sex and sexuality splits Stanley’s own mind.
The ‘independent’ woman: Women’s roles are changing in the early 20th century. Katherine McCormack is caught in a marriage with a man who she can’t be a proper wife to. Rather than leaving his side, she uses this as a platform by which she can properly involve herself in the efforts to give women more rights, including the right to vote. We already see in Katherine, a graduate of MIT herself, that she is not a typical woman of the mold that most in her social class were in, and rather than abandoning Stanley for a more ‘proper’ marriage, she stands by his side, convinced that she can perhaps make him better, and allowing the freedom she has to help her encourage other women to become scientists and scholars. She is even heavily involved in efforts to create birth control for women in the US, something that was considered scandalous at the time.
Katherine stands up for other women, no matter their class. She chastises the behavior of Eddie O’Kane, despite the fact he works so well for her husband. She doesn’t approve of his flippant behavior towards the women in his life, something he deeply resents her for. Yet Katherine has her limits of what ‘independent’ means. She is not irresponsible or ‘loose’, she doesn’t ever become like some women of her set who use the same birth control methods Katherine is trying to institute so that they can have lovers without fear of scandal. For Katherine, independence means she can have the right to chose how she lives her life, even if that ironically means she is bound forever to a husband who is insane.
The ‘California Dream’: This is best exemplified in Eddie O’Kane, but we find it in many of the characters, this dream that exemplified Southern California at the turn of the 20th century. Everything could and would be better out in California, with its sun, its oranges, its weather, its missions. Katherine sends Stanley there in hopes of curing him, much as many of those who were sick at that time came to California ‘for their health’. Eddie comes to start an orange farm and make it rich. California is the land of a million dreams, but few of those dreams are actually realized.
So every book has to suck somewhere: If I had to find a way this book sucked...well, I can't really. I must admit, this book was good. Now the historian in me wants to nit-pick and point out that these are real-life people, and this is a dramatization of real-life events at best, but...I don't care. It's a good story, it puts into perspective how a very real disease was handled in a time when psychology was only in its infancy. And it brings to light ones womans struggle to stand by her man and still be herself. I loved every minute of it.
Rate this wormy book: If I had to rate this book I'd rate it MONSTER worm. Go out and read it. I found it interesting and engaging, it was hard to put this one down.
How I heard about it: Two places really, my friend Megan suggested it for my book club, while my LA History Professor, Eric Avila, suggested one of this guy’s other books for his class. So it sort of joined together, as if destiny wanted me to read this book.
Setting: Santa Barbara, California, early 20th century.
Main Characters:
Katherine Dexter McCormack: A noted female scientist and first female graduate from MIT, Katherine is extremely intelligent and loves her damaged husband, Stanley greatly. She stands by his side throughout their long marriage, seeking both a cure for him, as well as involving herself in the growing issues of women’s rights.
Stanley McCormack: One of the heirs to Cyrus McCormack’s famous fortune, Stanley suffers from intense schizophrenia that manifests in a deep sexual violence and hatred of women. He is forced to be secluded from his wife and other female members of his family and society, and is locked for much of his life in his home of Riven Rock in California, (once the home of his schizophrenic sister).
Eddie O’Kane: Stanley’s head nurse, all he desires is to find fortune and sunshine in California’s fabled orange groves. Instead he finds a failed marriage and a fiery tempered Italian girl who make his life difficult, all the while he serves his employer Stanley faithfully.
Themes:
Mental Illness: It’s a horror to think how mental illness was treated in the past. In the beginning of the 20th century we were only begging to make the teeniest strides into the minimal understanding we even have now today, and by comparison it makes it hard for us to see Stanley’s plight. It’s heartbreaking to watch a man as charming and brilliant as Stanley fall into catatonic states where he is unable to move or eat. We don’t know what causes schizophrenia, or even if it can be cured, but the analogy of his home, Riven Rock, shows best the literal ‘split’ in Stanley’s mind. The estate is named for a large rock that is split by a tree growing on it, the act of life splitting it, much as sex and sexuality splits Stanley’s own mind.
The ‘independent’ woman: Women’s roles are changing in the early 20th century. Katherine McCormack is caught in a marriage with a man who she can’t be a proper wife to. Rather than leaving his side, she uses this as a platform by which she can properly involve herself in the efforts to give women more rights, including the right to vote. We already see in Katherine, a graduate of MIT herself, that she is not a typical woman of the mold that most in her social class were in, and rather than abandoning Stanley for a more ‘proper’ marriage, she stands by his side, convinced that she can perhaps make him better, and allowing the freedom she has to help her encourage other women to become scientists and scholars. She is even heavily involved in efforts to create birth control for women in the US, something that was considered scandalous at the time.
Katherine stands up for other women, no matter their class. She chastises the behavior of Eddie O’Kane, despite the fact he works so well for her husband. She doesn’t approve of his flippant behavior towards the women in his life, something he deeply resents her for. Yet Katherine has her limits of what ‘independent’ means. She is not irresponsible or ‘loose’, she doesn’t ever become like some women of her set who use the same birth control methods Katherine is trying to institute so that they can have lovers without fear of scandal. For Katherine, independence means she can have the right to chose how she lives her life, even if that ironically means she is bound forever to a husband who is insane.
The ‘California Dream’: This is best exemplified in Eddie O’Kane, but we find it in many of the characters, this dream that exemplified Southern California at the turn of the 20th century. Everything could and would be better out in California, with its sun, its oranges, its weather, its missions. Katherine sends Stanley there in hopes of curing him, much as many of those who were sick at that time came to California ‘for their health’. Eddie comes to start an orange farm and make it rich. California is the land of a million dreams, but few of those dreams are actually realized.
So every book has to suck somewhere: If I had to find a way this book sucked...well, I can't really. I must admit, this book was good. Now the historian in me wants to nit-pick and point out that these are real-life people, and this is a dramatization of real-life events at best, but...I don't care. It's a good story, it puts into perspective how a very real disease was handled in a time when psychology was only in its infancy. And it brings to light ones womans struggle to stand by her man and still be herself. I loved every minute of it.
Rate this wormy book: If I had to rate this book I'd rate it MONSTER worm. Go out and read it. I found it interesting and engaging, it was hard to put this one down.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Winds of War
Winds of War-Herman Wouk
How I found this book: In my father’s massive clutter of books that he had while I was a child. My father loved the mini-series, I grew up watching it, it was Dad and me’s thing to do, sit around and watch Winds of War, and War and Remembrance on cold winter afternoons. I’d like to add that because of this, I was the only person on my high school academic bowl team who knew that Herman Wouk was the author of these books when this question came up in the district academic bowl tournaments held my senior year.
Did I also mention I was a raging nerd in high school?
Setting: Pre-World War II, the late 1930’s, before Poland is invaded by Germany. The story ranges from Europe to Hawaii, as it’s one of those sweeping, epic types.
Main Characters:
Victor ‘Pug’ Henry: Long time naval officer, he has his heart set on command of a ship, but instead is sent to Berlin to serve as the naval attaché there as Hitler prepares his war.
Rhoda Henry: Victor’s longtime wife, a former socialite who has never settled easily into life as a naval wife.
Warren Henry: The eldest Henry child, he’s the ideal son, good at school and in sports, he follows his father into the navy and becomes a pilot.
Byron Henry: The middle Henry child, he is an indolent, restless man, not particularly good at or interested in anything. His vague interest in the Italian Renaissance takes him to Europe to study where he meets Aaron Jastrow and his beautiful niece, Natalie.
Madeline Henry: The youngest Henry child, she is bored with college, and takes the opportunity of her parents’ absence to run off to New York to be an independent young woman working in show business.
Aaron Jastrow: A respected scholar and author, Jastrow, a Polish Jew who emigrated to America quite young, live now in Siena, Italy, ostensibly researching and writing. He feels free of the threat to other Jews as he has not practiced his religion in years, and he is a renowned scholar and an American.
Natalie Jastrow: Aaron’s equally brilliant as well as beautiful niece, a Radcliffe graduate who is assisting her uncle while carrying on an affair with Leslie Sloat, a member of the American consulate.
Leslie Sloat: An American diplomat who is involved with Natalie, though he never intends on marrying her because she is ethnically Jewish.
Alastair Tudsbury: A British broadcaster, he befriends Pug Henry and warns him about the threat that Hitler poses the future.
Pamela Tudsbury: Alastair’s beautiful, impulsive young daughter, who steadily grows more attracted to the much older Pug.
Palmer Kirby: An American businessman whom Rhoda Henry becomes increasingly more involved with.
Plot: The Henrys, an American naval family, are swept up by the winds of war leading to Pearl Harbor. Pug Henry and his wife Rhoda watch as Germany begins to militarize itself, while unknown to them, their middle son Byron is caught in the middle of it as he works for Aaron Jastrow and falls in love with Aaron’s beautiful and willful niece. Far away in America, the eldest son, Warren trains to be a naval pilot, unaware that his services will be needed far too soon, and their daughter Madeline is caught up in the flurry of war gossip in the American media, as already the complacent American landscape is getting ready to be changed by war. Running over a course of two years, the Henry family is changed forever, as World War II begins, and as the story closes, they are all scattered by the winds, unsure if they will see each other again or even when.
Themes:
The growing tide of war: Wouk lived and served through these times, and he does a very good job of characterizing the growing threat of war in late 1930’s America. We see through the eyes and adventures of the Henry family the political and social changes going on that lead to the horrible events of the war.
The plight of the Jews: Wouk wrote this story and its sequel not only as a war story, but as a story of the Jews as well. He shows us how in even little ways the Jews were demeaned and degraded long before the first concentration camps were built. Pug and Rhoda have a particular heartbreaking decision in which they are asked to rent a lovely home at an exorbitantly low rate by the Jewish owners. When Pug wishes to refuse, the owner begs him to reconsider, knowing that at least Pug and Rhoda will take care of their home, even if he the owner would be victimized.
It is also revealed in the relationship of Byron and Natalie, who is an American Jew. Byron’s father isn’t happy with the relationship between his son, who was raised a Methodist, and a Jewish girl, (setting up a strange dichotomy in Pug, who hates the way Jews are treated in Germany). Yet Byron thinks nothing of aiding Natalie’s Polish family members as the Germans role into Poland. He furthermore stands up for both Natalie and an American diplomat against German officials who want to separate the two out for being Jewish. Byron sees first hand the danger the Jews in Europe face at the hands of Hitler’s forces, though he knows there is little he can do to stop it, save perhaps be involved in the war he and his father both suspect is coming.
Father/son relationships: Perhaps not a major part of the novel as the war, the relationship between Pug and his sons is a key tie between the Henrys in general. Pug has vastly different relationships with Warren and Byron. This tends to make Byron much more estranged from his father, though in many ways father and son are more alike than they let on. Warren, the ideal son, we find out is not as perfect as his father would see him either. While the brothers are close to one another, the tension between Pug and Byron will characterize Byron’s actions through much of the book, and in the sequel as well.
Military marriages: No matter how you slice it, military marriages aren’t easy. Pug and Rhoda’s marriage suffers from years in the navy, and now that war is coming, the tension comes to the breaking point.
So every book has to suck somewhere: If you LOVE World War II History, this is the book for you! If however you are not into history, politics, religion, World War II, or books big enough to build the foundation of your house with…I’d leave off this one. It’s a bit dry and prosaic in spots, and you’ll find yourself skipping through to the good bits. I’d recommend reading the good bits at least, maybe even the dry bits to educate you a bit, but really, this is a book for a certain type of reader, and if you aren’t that type, you’ll be bored by Chapter Three.
Rate this wormy book: This book rates a FAT WORM. If you love World War II, military history, or just a great, sweeping epic historical novel, YES, YES, YES. This book has all those things and more, and it is a great fictional insight into a tumultuous time in history. While it does have its drawbacks, (much more focus on Europe than on the what is going on in Asia or in America), it’s a great study on how the world changed for Americans when the war started, and how families like the Henrys were effected by it.
How I found this book: In my father’s massive clutter of books that he had while I was a child. My father loved the mini-series, I grew up watching it, it was Dad and me’s thing to do, sit around and watch Winds of War, and War and Remembrance on cold winter afternoons. I’d like to add that because of this, I was the only person on my high school academic bowl team who knew that Herman Wouk was the author of these books when this question came up in the district academic bowl tournaments held my senior year.
Did I also mention I was a raging nerd in high school?
Setting: Pre-World War II, the late 1930’s, before Poland is invaded by Germany. The story ranges from Europe to Hawaii, as it’s one of those sweeping, epic types.
Main Characters:
Victor ‘Pug’ Henry: Long time naval officer, he has his heart set on command of a ship, but instead is sent to Berlin to serve as the naval attaché there as Hitler prepares his war.
Rhoda Henry: Victor’s longtime wife, a former socialite who has never settled easily into life as a naval wife.
Warren Henry: The eldest Henry child, he’s the ideal son, good at school and in sports, he follows his father into the navy and becomes a pilot.
Byron Henry: The middle Henry child, he is an indolent, restless man, not particularly good at or interested in anything. His vague interest in the Italian Renaissance takes him to Europe to study where he meets Aaron Jastrow and his beautiful niece, Natalie.
Madeline Henry: The youngest Henry child, she is bored with college, and takes the opportunity of her parents’ absence to run off to New York to be an independent young woman working in show business.
Aaron Jastrow: A respected scholar and author, Jastrow, a Polish Jew who emigrated to America quite young, live now in Siena, Italy, ostensibly researching and writing. He feels free of the threat to other Jews as he has not practiced his religion in years, and he is a renowned scholar and an American.
Natalie Jastrow: Aaron’s equally brilliant as well as beautiful niece, a Radcliffe graduate who is assisting her uncle while carrying on an affair with Leslie Sloat, a member of the American consulate.
Leslie Sloat: An American diplomat who is involved with Natalie, though he never intends on marrying her because she is ethnically Jewish.
Alastair Tudsbury: A British broadcaster, he befriends Pug Henry and warns him about the threat that Hitler poses the future.
Pamela Tudsbury: Alastair’s beautiful, impulsive young daughter, who steadily grows more attracted to the much older Pug.
Palmer Kirby: An American businessman whom Rhoda Henry becomes increasingly more involved with.
Plot: The Henrys, an American naval family, are swept up by the winds of war leading to Pearl Harbor. Pug Henry and his wife Rhoda watch as Germany begins to militarize itself, while unknown to them, their middle son Byron is caught in the middle of it as he works for Aaron Jastrow and falls in love with Aaron’s beautiful and willful niece. Far away in America, the eldest son, Warren trains to be a naval pilot, unaware that his services will be needed far too soon, and their daughter Madeline is caught up in the flurry of war gossip in the American media, as already the complacent American landscape is getting ready to be changed by war. Running over a course of two years, the Henry family is changed forever, as World War II begins, and as the story closes, they are all scattered by the winds, unsure if they will see each other again or even when.
Themes:
The growing tide of war: Wouk lived and served through these times, and he does a very good job of characterizing the growing threat of war in late 1930’s America. We see through the eyes and adventures of the Henry family the political and social changes going on that lead to the horrible events of the war.
The plight of the Jews: Wouk wrote this story and its sequel not only as a war story, but as a story of the Jews as well. He shows us how in even little ways the Jews were demeaned and degraded long before the first concentration camps were built. Pug and Rhoda have a particular heartbreaking decision in which they are asked to rent a lovely home at an exorbitantly low rate by the Jewish owners. When Pug wishes to refuse, the owner begs him to reconsider, knowing that at least Pug and Rhoda will take care of their home, even if he the owner would be victimized.
It is also revealed in the relationship of Byron and Natalie, who is an American Jew. Byron’s father isn’t happy with the relationship between his son, who was raised a Methodist, and a Jewish girl, (setting up a strange dichotomy in Pug, who hates the way Jews are treated in Germany). Yet Byron thinks nothing of aiding Natalie’s Polish family members as the Germans role into Poland. He furthermore stands up for both Natalie and an American diplomat against German officials who want to separate the two out for being Jewish. Byron sees first hand the danger the Jews in Europe face at the hands of Hitler’s forces, though he knows there is little he can do to stop it, save perhaps be involved in the war he and his father both suspect is coming.
Father/son relationships: Perhaps not a major part of the novel as the war, the relationship between Pug and his sons is a key tie between the Henrys in general. Pug has vastly different relationships with Warren and Byron. This tends to make Byron much more estranged from his father, though in many ways father and son are more alike than they let on. Warren, the ideal son, we find out is not as perfect as his father would see him either. While the brothers are close to one another, the tension between Pug and Byron will characterize Byron’s actions through much of the book, and in the sequel as well.
Military marriages: No matter how you slice it, military marriages aren’t easy. Pug and Rhoda’s marriage suffers from years in the navy, and now that war is coming, the tension comes to the breaking point.
So every book has to suck somewhere: If you LOVE World War II History, this is the book for you! If however you are not into history, politics, religion, World War II, or books big enough to build the foundation of your house with…I’d leave off this one. It’s a bit dry and prosaic in spots, and you’ll find yourself skipping through to the good bits. I’d recommend reading the good bits at least, maybe even the dry bits to educate you a bit, but really, this is a book for a certain type of reader, and if you aren’t that type, you’ll be bored by Chapter Three.
Rate this wormy book: This book rates a FAT WORM. If you love World War II, military history, or just a great, sweeping epic historical novel, YES, YES, YES. This book has all those things and more, and it is a great fictional insight into a tumultuous time in history. While it does have its drawbacks, (much more focus on Europe than on the what is going on in Asia or in America), it’s a great study on how the world changed for Americans when the war started, and how families like the Henrys were effected by it.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Choke
Choke-Chuck Palahniuk
Setting: Los Angeles, the time is ambiguous. I'm assuming 'now', whatever that means.
Main Characters:
Victor Mancini: A former USC medical student and sex-addict with serious emotional issues, he pays for his mother's mounting health costs by pretending to nearly die in restaurants in order to gain money from unsuspecting good doers.
Ida Mancini: Victor's mother who has had a lifetime on the run, thanks in part to her belief in conspiracies as well as her frequent attempts to kidnap Victor from whatever foster home he was in as a child while she was locked up. She is now dying in a nursing home in Los Angeles, refusing to eat, and harboring a great secret about her son's existance.
Paige Marshall: Posing as a doctor, she is actually a patient at the same home as Victor's mother. She is both in love with Victor and more than a bit nuts.
Denny: Victor's loser best friend who puts up with Victor and his hijinx.
Plot: Victor Mancini is a failed USC med student who uses a clever con to get money to help take care of his dying mother, living in a nursing home where she refuses to eat. His life seems to revolve around his efforts to keep his mother alive long enough to tell him the secret of his life, and the reason that he's as fucked up as he is. He pretends to be a sex addict to have relationships with women at a help-group, so that he doesn't have to form permanent attachments. His only form of real emotional connection to anyone comes through his romance with the equally nutty Paige Marshall, and his strange friendship with Denny, who if anything seems to be the only halfway stable person in the entire book.
Themes:
Parent/child relationships: As any one of us could tell you, relationships with parents are often messed up. Victor is no exception. They make a mess of our lives, leave us to deal with it, and then we are left to take care of them when they are old. And yet we can't help but feel a strange love and need for them in our lives, even when we hate them for it.
Emotional bonds: Why bother making any emotional bonds when you know htat it's all going to fade in the end. Better to make fake ties to people, those hurt less when they are broken.
So every book has to suck somewhere: If you loved Fight Club, you can try this book, but I won't guarantee that you will like it, it's a bit out there even for Fight Club. There was a certain empathy you could have for the characters of that book that I wasn't feeling for the characters of Choke. What's more, the moment of suspense in the book isn't terribly surprising, given everything leading up to it. I just don't think it's as good or as neat of a story.
For those who haven't read or seen Fight Club, I wouldn't read this. You'll be turned off by the character as soon as you see him trying to pick up women at a sex addicts meeting. I had trouble getting even as far as I did before I just gave up and read the ending. Frankly, it's not that good of a book, the motivation of the main character is ambiguous at best for most of it, and part of me just wanted to kick him in the ass and tell him to get over it.
Rate this wormy book: This book rates a MAGGOT, it sucks so bad, I'd put the rock back on top of it. I had no desire to finish the book, I hated the characters, and the story seemed sad and pointless rather than brilliant and ironic.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lady Chatterly’s Lover-DH Lawrence
How I found this book: It was given to me by a former co-worker as a Christmas gift. Her reason…it was supposed to be a classic and scandalous! Can’t turn down good literature about sex, I suppose.
Setting: Post World War I Derbyshire, England, an area known for its coal mines. Much of it centers on the estate of Lord Clifford Chatterly, a typical 19th century manor house, one of the few left in a time when many of the British peerage have either abandoned or lost the grand homes of the Gilded Age.
Main Characters:
Constance, Lady Chatterly: An intelligent and modern-thinking upper-class woman, she is sexually and intellectually bored in her marriage to her paralytic husband.
Clifford, Lord Chatterly: Constance’s paralyzed husband, he lives a life dependent on Constance’s presence, living in a world of books and intellect.
Oliver Mellors: the gamekeeper for the Chatterly estate, he is a dark, brooding figure, very masculine, who lives a life independent, and is a stark contract to Clifford.
Plot: Constance Chatterly spends her youth caring for a paralytic husband, who she loves her in his own distant and self-absorbed way. She feels confined by the circumstances brought on by his war injuries. Though Clifford has suggested she take lovers, which Constance does, she finds little satisfaction in her gilded cage until Oliver Mellors enters her life. Brooding and dark, he is escaping a marriage from a woman who uses sex to try and control him, and though he tried to run away during the war, he’s returned, and finds solace in Constance’s honesty and desire. Though the liaison is scandalous for many reasons, (both of them are married and of different social standings), Constance finds in Mellors the physical as well as mental completion that she could never find with Clifford. When she realizes she is pregnant with Mellors child, she sets about creating a new life for herself, one in which she can be truly happy.
Themes:
Mental/Physical love: well, as much as we would love to say “well I MENTALLY love someone and find their mind stimulating”, let’s face it, we are horny sort. We like sex, we love the feeling of physically being with someone else, the stimulation of having that attraction for someone. If we didn’t, the San Fernando Valley would be without an industry, and hundreds of internet websites would be out of business. So it boils down to this…you got to be attracted to someone physically as well as mentally to be happy in a relationship.
Even more than that, physical love leads to well being. Well, any angst-ridden 16-year-old can tell you that, but it’s occasionally hard when you get a bit older to remember that life is better when you aren’t reduced to "once-a-month and on birthdays" sexual schedules. What’s more, sex isn’t something we need to keep secret behind the bedroom door…we should celebrate it, acknowledge it for all its embarrassments and shortcomings, laughter and occasionally disappointments. But most important, we need to accept it and not frown on it as ‘sinful’ or ‘tawdry’.
Class: While the story of the noble person/servant person getting their groove on is as old as there has been a concept of wealth and status, Lady Chatterly’s Lover purposely brought it up in this light. Why? Couldn’t Constance find a hot, independent sort of fellow in her class? I think DH Lawrence was saying…mmm, not so much. And perhaps in the waning romantic light of the Edwardian Era, and the harsh reality of the Roaring 20’s, this might be true. Much like the 60’s, everyone was questioning everything, and why in the world should one stick to one's class in matters of love and sex? After all if the rich set was making Constance happy in the first place, she might not have been eyeing the gamekeeper.
SCANDAL: I’m not just talking in terms of Constance and Mellor’s love-fest, I’m talking in real life scandal in terms of the book. Written in 1928, the idea of a book discussing sex and using the ‘f’ word to describe it was unheard of, and sort of titillating to the Old Empire crowd. It was banned in most countries until the 1960’s, and perhaps it paved the way for the swear-word laced, graphic-sex world of entertainment we enjoy today!
So every book has got to suck somewhere: Personally, while the book might have broke new ground in 1928, in 2008 the book only elicits a mild ‘eh’. Compared to half of the cheesy romance novels I’ve read in my lifetime, I’ve read much more titillating stuff, and I've heard worse language while driving the Los Angeles freeways. After you get past that, the story is almost prosaic, bored housewife gets groove on with virile working man and ditches intellectual hubby. It’s the plot of countless stories before and since, and not exactly exciting in its own right either anymore. The story of Lady Chatterly’s Lover perhaps then suffers from being stuck in its own time in a way. While the themes and story itself are timeless, the initial ‘shock’ value of it isn’t. None of this is new or even remotely interesting to us anymore, and that probably isn’t DH Lawrence’s fault. Chock it up to Hollywood, but the story is old and boring, and after a while you stop caring for the characters and wonder to yourself “am I this self-centered in a relationship?”
On top of this, the characterization of the main players seems almost flat and chariactured. I find that we are stuck with the 'stereotypical' players in a story of inter-class romance, the bored, rich wife, the boring, stuck up husband, the mysterious, attractive, and usually angry poor man, and the bit players who are all amoral as long as it concerns hank-panky within the class, but outside, we can't have THAT now! Now, this could be in part because this formula has been copied more times than the answer key for a high school math test, but it really, really seems stale here. The characters felt so wooden and so self-absorbed that you really just hoped something awful would happen to them to liven the party up. Perhaps a huge flaming spear through Mellors shoulder during the war, or Clifford falling off a pier and drowning, just to make the party more fun. The characters aren't really nice, hell, they aren't even likeable. But I could forgive it if they were at least interesting, which in this case they aren't.
Rate this wormy book: I'll give this a 'little worm'. While the story is indeed groundbreaking in its own time, I find that it is just that, stuck in its own time. Some of its themes, while not really irrelevant, aren't as new, shocking, or fresh for us anymore. We find them in so many places now that Lady Chatterly really suffers for it in modern eyes. On top of that, the characters are rather flat and hard to empathize with, and you really just find yourself hoping a huge, flaming rock will fall on someones head.
How I found this book: It was given to me by a former co-worker as a Christmas gift. Her reason…it was supposed to be a classic and scandalous! Can’t turn down good literature about sex, I suppose.
Setting: Post World War I Derbyshire, England, an area known for its coal mines. Much of it centers on the estate of Lord Clifford Chatterly, a typical 19th century manor house, one of the few left in a time when many of the British peerage have either abandoned or lost the grand homes of the Gilded Age.
Main Characters:
Constance, Lady Chatterly: An intelligent and modern-thinking upper-class woman, she is sexually and intellectually bored in her marriage to her paralytic husband.
Clifford, Lord Chatterly: Constance’s paralyzed husband, he lives a life dependent on Constance’s presence, living in a world of books and intellect.
Oliver Mellors: the gamekeeper for the Chatterly estate, he is a dark, brooding figure, very masculine, who lives a life independent, and is a stark contract to Clifford.
Plot: Constance Chatterly spends her youth caring for a paralytic husband, who she loves her in his own distant and self-absorbed way. She feels confined by the circumstances brought on by his war injuries. Though Clifford has suggested she take lovers, which Constance does, she finds little satisfaction in her gilded cage until Oliver Mellors enters her life. Brooding and dark, he is escaping a marriage from a woman who uses sex to try and control him, and though he tried to run away during the war, he’s returned, and finds solace in Constance’s honesty and desire. Though the liaison is scandalous for many reasons, (both of them are married and of different social standings), Constance finds in Mellors the physical as well as mental completion that she could never find with Clifford. When she realizes she is pregnant with Mellors child, she sets about creating a new life for herself, one in which she can be truly happy.
Themes:
Mental/Physical love: well, as much as we would love to say “well I MENTALLY love someone and find their mind stimulating”, let’s face it, we are horny sort. We like sex, we love the feeling of physically being with someone else, the stimulation of having that attraction for someone. If we didn’t, the San Fernando Valley would be without an industry, and hundreds of internet websites would be out of business. So it boils down to this…you got to be attracted to someone physically as well as mentally to be happy in a relationship.
Even more than that, physical love leads to well being. Well, any angst-ridden 16-year-old can tell you that, but it’s occasionally hard when you get a bit older to remember that life is better when you aren’t reduced to "once-a-month and on birthdays" sexual schedules. What’s more, sex isn’t something we need to keep secret behind the bedroom door…we should celebrate it, acknowledge it for all its embarrassments and shortcomings, laughter and occasionally disappointments. But most important, we need to accept it and not frown on it as ‘sinful’ or ‘tawdry’.
Class: While the story of the noble person/servant person getting their groove on is as old as there has been a concept of wealth and status, Lady Chatterly’s Lover purposely brought it up in this light. Why? Couldn’t Constance find a hot, independent sort of fellow in her class? I think DH Lawrence was saying…mmm, not so much. And perhaps in the waning romantic light of the Edwardian Era, and the harsh reality of the Roaring 20’s, this might be true. Much like the 60’s, everyone was questioning everything, and why in the world should one stick to one's class in matters of love and sex? After all if the rich set was making Constance happy in the first place, she might not have been eyeing the gamekeeper.
SCANDAL: I’m not just talking in terms of Constance and Mellor’s love-fest, I’m talking in real life scandal in terms of the book. Written in 1928, the idea of a book discussing sex and using the ‘f’ word to describe it was unheard of, and sort of titillating to the Old Empire crowd. It was banned in most countries until the 1960’s, and perhaps it paved the way for the swear-word laced, graphic-sex world of entertainment we enjoy today!
So every book has got to suck somewhere: Personally, while the book might have broke new ground in 1928, in 2008 the book only elicits a mild ‘eh’. Compared to half of the cheesy romance novels I’ve read in my lifetime, I’ve read much more titillating stuff, and I've heard worse language while driving the Los Angeles freeways. After you get past that, the story is almost prosaic, bored housewife gets groove on with virile working man and ditches intellectual hubby. It’s the plot of countless stories before and since, and not exactly exciting in its own right either anymore. The story of Lady Chatterly’s Lover perhaps then suffers from being stuck in its own time in a way. While the themes and story itself are timeless, the initial ‘shock’ value of it isn’t. None of this is new or even remotely interesting to us anymore, and that probably isn’t DH Lawrence’s fault. Chock it up to Hollywood, but the story is old and boring, and after a while you stop caring for the characters and wonder to yourself “am I this self-centered in a relationship?”
On top of this, the characterization of the main players seems almost flat and chariactured. I find that we are stuck with the 'stereotypical' players in a story of inter-class romance, the bored, rich wife, the boring, stuck up husband, the mysterious, attractive, and usually angry poor man, and the bit players who are all amoral as long as it concerns hank-panky within the class, but outside, we can't have THAT now! Now, this could be in part because this formula has been copied more times than the answer key for a high school math test, but it really, really seems stale here. The characters felt so wooden and so self-absorbed that you really just hoped something awful would happen to them to liven the party up. Perhaps a huge flaming spear through Mellors shoulder during the war, or Clifford falling off a pier and drowning, just to make the party more fun. The characters aren't really nice, hell, they aren't even likeable. But I could forgive it if they were at least interesting, which in this case they aren't.
Rate this wormy book: I'll give this a 'little worm'. While the story is indeed groundbreaking in its own time, I find that it is just that, stuck in its own time. Some of its themes, while not really irrelevant, aren't as new, shocking, or fresh for us anymore. We find them in so many places now that Lady Chatterly really suffers for it in modern eyes. On top of that, the characters are rather flat and hard to empathize with, and you really just find yourself hoping a huge, flaming rock will fall on someones head.
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