Hannibal or Why Am I Still Reading This?

Now Hannibal is free and sending Clarice new clues. I am only about half way through right now, and my favorite part is in the letter Hannibal sends Clarice, in which he tells her to look into a skillet. Huh. "Look into the skillet, Clarice. Lean over it and look down. If this were your mothers skillet, and it may well be, I t would hold among its molecules the vibrations of all the conversations held in its presence. All the exchanges, the petty irritations, the deadly revelations, the flat announcements of disaster, the poetry of love...Look into the honest iron and know Clarice, you can be as strong as you wish to be. The most Stable elements, Clarice, appear in the middle of the periodic table, roughly between iron and silver. Between Iron and Silver. I think that is appropriate for you." So, scary book, but it has to be scary. Im honestly not sure if I am going to finish it. I want to, but im not sure I want Hannibal in rummaging around in my mind.

Still Finding Lubchenko

Evans father is 70 years old, classical hard boiled Scottish and a complete hard-***. He doesn’t understand 'kids these days', and refuses to have huge TVs, swimming pools, and vacation houses. "I should mention that my dad does have a vacation home. Sort of. It was more of a tiny shack near Mount Rainier, not that far from Seattle. It wasn’t the kind of vacation home where you sat around the pool sipping frozen cocktails. Instead it was the sort of place where you reclaimed your manhood. My father and I would go up there and spend the entire weekend chopping wood. Some fun. But my dad loved discipline and manly exercise, so that's what we did."

On a side note, Evans father is arrested for supposed murder, and Evan overhears his fathers work partner speaking about setups and stolen viruses. Basically Evan and his friends have to travel through France and Italy to save the world. And the book is very funny. But the characters, and the relationship between Evan and his Father, are the best part.

The Last Hero

The Last Hero takes place in Terry Pratchetts 'Disk World' Universe. Disk World is a world "on the back of four elephants perched on the shell of a giant turtle." because, the advantage of space is that its big enough to hold practically anything, and so it does. The last hero is one of those 'hitchikers guide-esque', cracked out satires that is so far from anything normal or sane that it is amazing the authorcan make connections back to satirize our world, but he does.

I adore Terry Pratchett. 'Good Omens' is my favorite book. The Last Hero is pretty cool. It tells the story of the last hero in Disk World, whose gotten pretty up there in years. "He can remember the good old days of high adventure, when being a hero meant one didn't have to worry about aching backs and lawyers and civilization.
But these days, he cant always remember where he put his teeth." And so our elderly protaganist sets out to end the world in a blaze of glory br returning fire to the gods. Who are completely insane aswell. I have yet to finish 'The Last hero' too, I have a pretty busy spring break ahead of me.

The Once and Future King

I do not have a good reason for reading this fantastic book, but I have two bad ones, so. The first is that I saw the character Magneto reading it in the 'X-men' movie, and the second is that it was available when no other books were, so I started. I expected boring, drawn out, descriptions of moss and and the great grand parents of a side character ( i am not poking any sort of fun at Lord of the Rings, because i could never back that up. This is purely theoretical.) Once and Future King is nothing like that! its exciting, and interesting, and most surprisingly, hilarious.

It reminded me a lot more of the disney adaptation 'The Sword and the Stone' than I ever would have expected. I think they had some of the same jokes, which is too weird, and awesome. I hate that books seem like these big, boring things and 9 times out of 10, their absolutely not, and really every bit as entertaining as TV. Anyway, the plot revolves around young Arthur or 'Wart' meeting and being taught by merlin, the wizard. My favorite part so far (i am no where near finished) is when Arthur meets merlin, and his owl Archimedes. T.H white nails character psychology in only a few words, and i like his outlook on life. So far. (hes not allowed to kill Arthur).

Hannibal (eep)

The book is different from the movie, let me say that. I think the movie focuses on and glorifies Hannibal, while the book is about Clarice. It is not a horror book really, but a mystery-thriller. Really, we discover things along with Clarice, and Hannibal plays a very small part. The author, Thomas Harris, is very good at drawing the reader in and making you feel what Clarice feels. However, this isn’t always such a good thing. As in, I can’t read this book going to bed, and I can’t read it on my own, because it is truly terrifying in parts. Personally, I think Harris went way overboard with descriptions. But I knew the books reputation when I picked it up, so I’m going to move past the whole 'my psyche will never be the same' topic.

Clarice Starling is an investigative agent, and her entire life revolves around her work. A few years before the book takes place, ex psychologist and present-day Serial Killer Hannibal Lector traded her information to aid in catching the murderer 'buffalo bill' in exchange for stories about her child hood. That’s a very important piece of the book; because it showed Clarice things about herself she didn’t know.

Finding Lubchenko

Young Adult Fiction great. Because this is a book that's targeted towards teens without being written and edited to 'teach life lessons' I suppose. This is a very common flaw in YA books, the main characters simply aren’t realistic, and empathizing with a character parents-want-you-to-be-but-that-doesn’t-exist isn’t possible. And I believe its one of the main reasons kids don't read.

'Finding Lubchenko', however, is about a real kid. He wants to do well in school, and he’s bright, but it’s still not happening. He doesn’t want his dad to be disappointed in him, but he can’t resist getting into trouble. And yet, he’s not a completely horrible person. He is without a doubt spoiled, and selfish, and he doesn’t pull a 180 in the end. Onto the plot of the book, Evan, the main character, has an extremely wealthy father who is one of the foremost medical Cancer researchers.

Fight Club

Where do I even begin? I re-read 'Fight club' for the third time this week, and plus the endless pop references to it and the popularity of the movie, I would bet I about know the thing by heart by now. Neither the nihilistic message nor the 'fight' club its self are the invention of the author, Chuck Palahniuk. Fight clubs have existed since the beginning of civilization, and nihilism has its ancient history as well.

Even all the unthinkable anecdotes throughout the story (Tyler splicing pornography into family films, The narrator attending cancer support meetings despite his being cancer free to make himself feel better) Palahniuk has openly admitted are recollections borrowed from his friends and their friends.

However fight club is an incomparable book, its impact and message is incomparable to any other books on its subject, indeed almost any book of the century. This is because of Palahniuk’s ability to discern and translate the feelings of a generation. His mastery of story telling is truly unparalleled in the past half century of writing, and ok, he’s actually really original. I just wanted to point out that it’s his ability to comprehend and communicate through metaphors like "I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. Then I ran some more."