I'm rereading the Fountainhead. This will be a difficult book blog, because 'The Fountainhead' is one of those books that you really want to see the facial expressions of the person your communicating about it with. Truth is, i like the fountainhead a lot. Yes, the constant push of objectionism gets old quick, but i read the book first when i didn't know about Rand or her philosophy, and i appreciated the book as exceptional characters surviving in fifties society. I don't think there is really any need to get up in arms about Ayn Rand, and i don't want to talk about or participate in her philosophy. Her books, on the other hand.
As far fetched as Objectionism is, Ayn is really good at creating passionate indignation in a girl. Some of her speeches are just flat persuasive. This is partly because she is the queen of logical fallacies. Seriously, sometimes she just flat out lies, but since her work is fiction, and its Howard Roark claiming whatever, not Rand. Obligatory Ayn Rand hate fest '09 behind us, i love this book. I love the characters, who are fleshed out so refreshingly, and the speeches, and her descriptions are amazing. Since I'm not about to summarize the fountain heads entire plot, i will just quote my favorite 2 quotes in the first 2 pages. first, in her description of Howard Roark, who stands at the edge of a cliff over a lake which reflects the sky; "a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a saint." that description stayed with me throughout the book, and played a huge role in how i perceived Roark. The other quote is this "He stepped to the edge, raised his arms, and dived down into the sky below."
Now that, that is just pretty.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
The Picture of Dorian Gray
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it." Oh Lord Henry. maybe that's the opiates talking. Dorian Gray is one of my favorite books, definitely my favorite classic. I played at reading it for years until sophomore year, and have now read ti completely 3 times. Its a very important book to read at my age. At any age really, but teenagers and moral ambiguity go particularly well together. The first time i read it, it was because i knew a little about Oscar Wilde's philosophy of aestheticism, and i kind of wanted to be convinced that morals were unnecessary, and that evil could be used as means to an end. At first, 'Dorian Gray' seems to do just that. Until he meets Lord Henry, Dorian has never been tempted to justify sin.
His portrait has just been painted, and his is the picture (pardon the pun) of innocence. Then lord Henry introduces his theories; that all the good humans do is done out of fear of repercussions, and that the only way to stop temptation is to give into to it. Dorian is impressionable and he, of course, loves the idea that sin can be excused and even necessary. perhaps Oscar Wilde wrote this book as he himself felt Dorian's struggle between Henry and society's contrasting ideals. Either way, He writes Lord Henry to be a very persuasive man. I was persuaded, and I though Dorian may never be punished for his sins. He is, of course, punished. His own soul ends up destroying up, much like in the tell tale heart by Poe, he eventually condemns himself. He resolves to destroy the painting which has aged and become cruel in appearance for him, and he sets it on fire. And in a perfect metaphor of self destruction, the painting is returned to its original beauty and youth while a horribly burned, old and crooked Dorian lies dead beneath it.
His portrait has just been painted, and his is the picture (pardon the pun) of innocence. Then lord Henry introduces his theories; that all the good humans do is done out of fear of repercussions, and that the only way to stop temptation is to give into to it. Dorian is impressionable and he, of course, loves the idea that sin can be excused and even necessary. perhaps Oscar Wilde wrote this book as he himself felt Dorian's struggle between Henry and society's contrasting ideals. Either way, He writes Lord Henry to be a very persuasive man. I was persuaded, and I though Dorian may never be punished for his sins. He is, of course, punished. His own soul ends up destroying up, much like in the tell tale heart by Poe, he eventually condemns himself. He resolves to destroy the painting which has aged and become cruel in appearance for him, and he sets it on fire. And in a perfect metaphor of self destruction, the painting is returned to its original beauty and youth while a horribly burned, old and crooked Dorian lies dead beneath it.
The Historian
The Historian is a vampire book unlike any other vampire book I have read. One Hint: the vampires don't glitter. For once, the vampires are not the subject of the romance. For once it isn't a romance, its an actual horror story. Unique! Its more of a mystery novel than anything though, the solid fact that vampires exist isnt believed until 1/3 of the way through the novel, the main characters are regularly people with no inclination to believe in the supernatural at all, so when they are confronted with it...its scary. When unromanticised, vampires are actually horrifying. The premis is that all vampires are escendents of Vlad 'The Impaler' Ţepeş, whos very real and grotestque history is explained throughout the book. Halfway through the novel, before any contact had been made with a vampire, simply finding out that Vlad still exists is terrifying.
The characters travel around the world, often a decade or so after each other, to uncover the truth and find the character that connects them all, the historian, who plays granfather to the main character, mentor to her father and father to her mom. The description of their destinations is beautiful, and the charqacterization is realistic.the author created a real portrayal of people would react to learning of the existence of vampires. On the bad side, for me the book really dragged. It seemed to inch along where it should have been flying, and I still have yet to finish it. I am going to, because it does have its hooks in me, but it might take awhile.
The characters travel around the world, often a decade or so after each other, to uncover the truth and find the character that connects them all, the historian, who plays granfather to the main character, mentor to her father and father to her mom. The description of their destinations is beautiful, and the charqacterization is realistic.the author created a real portrayal of people would react to learning of the existence of vampires. On the bad side, for me the book really dragged. It seemed to inch along where it should have been flying, and I still have yet to finish it. I am going to, because it does have its hooks in me, but it might take awhile.
The Death of Ivan Ilych
...and other short stories, by Leo Tolstoy(!). I haven't even finished the first story in this book of shorts by Tolstoy, but I have been thinking about it since I started it. I didn't start reading Tolstoy to expecting to enjoy it. I started it to challenge myself. I have heard a lot of people speak in equal awe of his talent and tediousness. But the book i stumbled upon (on your shelf) is a book of short story's, and i can never resist a book of short stories. I would be willing to bet its a very appropriate median for an author who takes up chapters describing what might have been in the corner of the room, had it not been shadowed. So, the first story revolves around an unlikely romance between a seventeen year old girl and 37 year old man. For the first half whether or not they will even have a romance is left up in the air for the reader, so when they finally, against all odds, are married I thought it was the end. But it wasn't, and I believe that is where my feeling of foreboding began.
“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” Stopping a story at all for Leo Tolstoy is obviously very difficult, and the happy couple were described living contentedly in the country side for so long that the main character, the 17 year old young wife, grew very bored, and insisted they visit 'society'. The rest of the story describes every single moment which contributes to their falling out of love, which the characters are ignorant of until after its happened. I wanted to look away, but I had to keep reading. Tolstoy notices things about human interaction that i doubt anyone else has ever consciously registered. In this case, his endless love for detail makes the story. I still hate him for putting me through the slow motion wrecking of their marriage, but maybe hell make it up to me in the next story.
“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” Stopping a story at all for Leo Tolstoy is obviously very difficult, and the happy couple were described living contentedly in the country side for so long that the main character, the 17 year old young wife, grew very bored, and insisted they visit 'society'. The rest of the story describes every single moment which contributes to their falling out of love, which the characters are ignorant of until after its happened. I wanted to look away, but I had to keep reading. Tolstoy notices things about human interaction that i doubt anyone else has ever consciously registered. In this case, his endless love for detail makes the story. I still hate him for putting me through the slow motion wrecking of their marriage, but maybe hell make it up to me in the next story.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Short Fictions and Wonders: Fragile Things
'Fragile Things' is just as original and creative as all of Neil Gaiman's work, meaning very. I was excited to come across his book of short stories because I love the instant gratification of short stories. They take no commitment to read but give all the satisfaction and excitement of the ending. Often, they are wilder, more daring than full books as well. Neil Gaiman gives short stories his own twist.
His books are never planted firmly in reality, and his short stories soar away from it. One story is told from the point of view of October, one theorizes that the demons who torture in hell are simply the full circle transition of humans who have been sent there and tortured into the demons themselves, and another tells the story of Narnia’s Susan, who wonders why she was kept from Narnia in her old age. Neil Gaiman is the tricky sort of writer who plans out every word to later have relevance.
The only downside was that they’re in book format, and I inhaled the whole book in 2 days, and missed all those subtle Gaiman nuances.
My favorite story, which I did re-read, is entitled 'Harlequin Valentine' It begins with the trickster 'Harlequin', from the Italian Commedia dell'art, literally pinning his heart to the door of his obsession, the lovely Columbine. She pockets the heart in a Ziploc bag and Windex’s her door, and then proceeds to run errands and run into the disguised columbine throughout Valentines Day. She at last enters a diner, and requests a bottle of ketchup, hash browns and sneak knife, and eats poor Harlequins heart. She then pulls Harlequin into the street and claims his mask and cane, becoming harlequin as he fades into a bewildered human busboy only taking a smoke break outside the diner. I was pretty devastated at this point, but all's well that ends weird, apparently: he is ushered back inside and notices a plate with just one bite of meat left, and for reasons unknown to him, eats it, dropping one splatter of ketchup on his sleeve which forms a perfect red diamond, the harlequin trademark. And whistling, he goes to work.
I plan on re-reading all the stories when I have the chance, and am being Harlequin for Halloween. In conclusion, I never had a chance not to like this book, its Neil Gaiman. He does get a bit melancholy at times though, his stories rarely end on the fantastical note he uses throughout his fiction, and Gaiman seems to have a phobia of happy endings.
Next up: Octavian Nothing, The Best Book in the Known Universe
Aka
Should I Start Choosing Books I Can Make Up At Least One Complaint For?
His books are never planted firmly in reality, and his short stories soar away from it. One story is told from the point of view of October, one theorizes that the demons who torture in hell are simply the full circle transition of humans who have been sent there and tortured into the demons themselves, and another tells the story of Narnia’s Susan, who wonders why she was kept from Narnia in her old age. Neil Gaiman is the tricky sort of writer who plans out every word to later have relevance.
The only downside was that they’re in book format, and I inhaled the whole book in 2 days, and missed all those subtle Gaiman nuances.
My favorite story, which I did re-read, is entitled 'Harlequin Valentine' It begins with the trickster 'Harlequin', from the Italian Commedia dell'art, literally pinning his heart to the door of his obsession, the lovely Columbine. She pockets the heart in a Ziploc bag and Windex’s her door, and then proceeds to run errands and run into the disguised columbine throughout Valentines Day. She at last enters a diner, and requests a bottle of ketchup, hash browns and sneak knife, and eats poor Harlequins heart. She then pulls Harlequin into the street and claims his mask and cane, becoming harlequin as he fades into a bewildered human busboy only taking a smoke break outside the diner. I was pretty devastated at this point, but all's well that ends weird, apparently: he is ushered back inside and notices a plate with just one bite of meat left, and for reasons unknown to him, eats it, dropping one splatter of ketchup on his sleeve which forms a perfect red diamond, the harlequin trademark. And whistling, he goes to work.
I plan on re-reading all the stories when I have the chance, and am being Harlequin for Halloween. In conclusion, I never had a chance not to like this book, its Neil Gaiman. He does get a bit melancholy at times though, his stories rarely end on the fantastical note he uses throughout his fiction, and Gaiman seems to have a phobia of happy endings.
Next up: Octavian Nothing, The Best Book in the Known Universe
Aka
Should I Start Choosing Books I Can Make Up At Least One Complaint For?
Monday, September 28, 2009
A Movable Feast
I realized that I have only done one non-fiction so far, so I chose Ernest Hemingway’s 'A movable Feast' which actually, I read this summer. I was in a bookstore on a trip with my grandmother, who was already becoming suspicious of the quality of books I read (shed spotted my Sandman graphic novel) and when I held up Sedaris's 'When you are engulfed in flames' hopefully, she decided officially that id been reading 'immoral books' and cleaned the store out of its Hemingway selection. I don’t really know what her reasoning behind that was, but I know better than to argue with it. She later found out I had read 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand and was pleased, so I have to wonder if by 'immoral' she might have meant 'unimpressive'. The purpose of this paragraph is not to question my grandmother’s motives, as it may seem, but to explain that I really would never have read any Hemingway at all if my grandmother had not, um, 'encouraged' it.
So I started reading movable feast without a lot of anticipation, but once I opened it, I actually didn’t put it down. I read it in one afternoon, because Hemingway is an easy guy to read. Not easy as in unchallenging, easy as in very good. Probably it was all the hype, but he just struck me as a really great writer. Also, as the most impressive drinker EVER. And kind-of annoyingly self righteous, but GREAT WRITER. I think. A movable feast is a Hemingway’s auto biography of the time he spent in Paris with his first wife, his 'starving artist' years, although it has been proved that he was well off during those years.
The truth is, I’m still unsure of how I feel about this book. First off, I really don’t feel qualified to judge Hemingway on any level, and second off...He annoyed me. His writing didn’t annoy me, but the oh-so-effective and descriptive prose didn’t do much for me when I wasn’t sure about the main character. Literally, Hemingway himself annoyed me.
Maybe I’m just sore about how he treated F.Scott Fitzgerald, whose characterization I for some reason became attached to during the book.
This is probably the most superficial book review of any Hemingway novel ever, but what I really came away with was a sense of awe and disbelief in Hemingway’s drinking ability, and love for the title itself 'A Movable Feast', a very creative and beautiful metaphor for Paris.
So I started reading movable feast without a lot of anticipation, but once I opened it, I actually didn’t put it down. I read it in one afternoon, because Hemingway is an easy guy to read. Not easy as in unchallenging, easy as in very good. Probably it was all the hype, but he just struck me as a really great writer. Also, as the most impressive drinker EVER. And kind-of annoyingly self righteous, but GREAT WRITER. I think. A movable feast is a Hemingway’s auto biography of the time he spent in Paris with his first wife, his 'starving artist' years, although it has been proved that he was well off during those years.
The truth is, I’m still unsure of how I feel about this book. First off, I really don’t feel qualified to judge Hemingway on any level, and second off...He annoyed me. His writing didn’t annoy me, but the oh-so-effective and descriptive prose didn’t do much for me when I wasn’t sure about the main character. Literally, Hemingway himself annoyed me.
Maybe I’m just sore about how he treated F.Scott Fitzgerald, whose characterization I for some reason became attached to during the book.
This is probably the most superficial book review of any Hemingway novel ever, but what I really came away with was a sense of awe and disbelief in Hemingway’s drinking ability, and love for the title itself 'A Movable Feast', a very creative and beautiful metaphor for Paris.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish
As it is printed on the cover, 'so long and thanks for all the fish' is the fourth in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers Trilogy. I had read the first two Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy books, but not the third, when I started the fourth, and I was a little afraid of being lost in the plot. Luckily, the reader can flip any of the books to any page, any paragraph and have about the same level of comprehension and confusion as someone who’s read the whole series religiously. About every other paragraph is satirizing some common issue, in fact the entire premise, that earth is destroyed and Arthur Dent, normal and unobtrusive descendent of the apes, must fend for himself as hitchhiker in the Galaxy. The day earth is destroyed Arthur is protesting the demolishing of his house to put up a bypass by laying in between his house and the bulldozer meant to destroy it, though the demolisher Mr.Prosser points out:
"Some factual information for you. Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?"
"How much?" said Arthur.
"None at all," said Mr. Prosser.
Arthur’s house does get demolished, and later that day, so does planet earth, on account of a hyper space bypass that really needed to go straight through where the earth was. Arthur escapes with his best friend, the alien Ford Prefect, my favorite character, Drunkard and experienced Hitchhiker. Every character is memorable and sympathetic, though the inanimate objects tend to have a lot more character and vigor than the actual characters. The best way to read these books is without any expectations or judgments at all, and all the faith you can muster up. The absolutely impressively, creatively random insanity that Douglas writes always manages to have a purpose, and tie mind-bogglingly (a very useful phrase in describing the hitchhikers trilogy) around to close up the story. Douglas tackles the greatest questions man kind has ever asked, from 'is there life outside of earth?' (yes, duh) to what is the answer to the meaning of life?' (The number 42,) to gods final farewell message (sorry for the inconvenience).
Despite being the most illuminating book ever written, 'so long and thanks for all the fish' also happens to be utterly without meaning, and arguably without a certainly cohesive strand of thought. This is acknowledged appropriately in the last line of the book: "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind."
I love Douglas Adams "Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" because it is the most feel-good series I have ever read, without any doubt one of the funniest, and ill admit it; they always leave me feeling a little enlightened, with a happy-Buddha smile on my face. So if I'm incomprehensively late on this book blog, it’s because I’m finding it hard to really care about grades when I've made my peace with my world being demolished to make alien transit easier.
"Some factual information for you. Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?"
"How much?" said Arthur.
"None at all," said Mr. Prosser.
Arthur’s house does get demolished, and later that day, so does planet earth, on account of a hyper space bypass that really needed to go straight through where the earth was. Arthur escapes with his best friend, the alien Ford Prefect, my favorite character, Drunkard and experienced Hitchhiker. Every character is memorable and sympathetic, though the inanimate objects tend to have a lot more character and vigor than the actual characters. The best way to read these books is without any expectations or judgments at all, and all the faith you can muster up. The absolutely impressively, creatively random insanity that Douglas writes always manages to have a purpose, and tie mind-bogglingly (a very useful phrase in describing the hitchhikers trilogy) around to close up the story. Douglas tackles the greatest questions man kind has ever asked, from 'is there life outside of earth?' (yes, duh) to what is the answer to the meaning of life?' (The number 42,) to gods final farewell message (sorry for the inconvenience).
Despite being the most illuminating book ever written, 'so long and thanks for all the fish' also happens to be utterly without meaning, and arguably without a certainly cohesive strand of thought. This is acknowledged appropriately in the last line of the book: "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind."
I love Douglas Adams "Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" because it is the most feel-good series I have ever read, without any doubt one of the funniest, and ill admit it; they always leave me feeling a little enlightened, with a happy-Buddha smile on my face. So if I'm incomprehensively late on this book blog, it’s because I’m finding it hard to really care about grades when I've made my peace with my world being demolished to make alien transit easier.
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