The Classics Project: Rebecca

I've been having trouble sleeping for the last week or so, and while that is not terribly beneficial to my physical or mental health, I have been reading. A lot.

Rebecca is a novel of romantic suspense by Daphne Du Maurier. I have a vague recollection of watching the Alfred Hitchcock movie a very long time ago, but I remembered little in the way of plot, only a vague sense of impending doom (which, to be fair, is present in all of Mr. Hitchcock's films). Interestingly, I did not realize how recent the book is. By recent I mean 1938 as opposed to sometime in the 1800s.

The start is slow. Really slow. Honestly, if this book had not been part of The Classics Project I would have given it up in favor of something more interesting. The writing often feels stilted and unnecessarily florid. As for the main character, well, let's just say I've held conversations with pillows that were more interesting than her.

The story starts off in the wealthy and transient town of Monte Carlo in the south of France. The narrator (and main character) is working as a companion to a rich, obnoxious American woman. She gets swept off her feet by the charming, intelligent, darkly moody, and recently widowed Maximillian de Winters. The very first part was interesting enough. It felt like your basic romance. There's no doubt about who the players are - the highly experienced but flawed man and the naive young girl. Yet even at the beginning a thread of suspense pervades the story that is less normal for your typical romance. This thread is strengthened and broadened as the narrator elopes with Mr. de Winters and returns to his home, Manderly.

From the beginning it is obvious that there is something very wrong with the circumstances of Mr. de Winter's late wife's death. We don't know what. We don't know why. All we know is who: Rebecca.

Rebecca is fascinating as a literary device. She's the title character. She's the catalyst for the book's conflict. And she is never once actually appears in the book. We see her only through what she left behind. Her room. Her clothes. Her monogrammed handkerchief with her elaborate capital "R." Through the memories of the Manderly staff and the local townspeople, we see her as a beautiful, vivacious woman who was good at everything (though, we learn, that is hardly the whole story). We also see her through the extended fantasies of the narrator.

The narrator constantly pits herself against this dead woman and constantly loses. She's incapable of making decisions, accepting the stern and hateful rule of the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, who worshiped Rebecca. She floats along in a cloud of doom and gloom that is positively exhausting. What sympathy can there be for a wet blanket of character who constantly bemoans her lack of interesting qualities? In that regard, I quite agree with her. Basically, the narrator has no agency for the first half of the book.

I was about ready to give up on the book entirely when my partner suddenly remembered having read it in high school English class. "Go on," they said. "It really picks up after the ball scene."

And it did. I hit the ball scene about five minutes after that conversation and the book finally got interesting. I won't go into details, but a secret was revealed that changed the whole scope of the novel. While the narrator is still ridiculously uninteresting, she at least begins to, you know, do things.

William Bernhardt, my writing teacher, once put it this way. Your character should struggle, not suffer. No one enjoys watching someone suffer passively chapter after chapter. Instead, we want to seem them try, attempt, rail against; we want to see them struggle. In a strange moment of self-cognizance, the book gave me this quote:

"I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth."

Which pretty much sums up what I didn't like about the book.

Honestly I think the book would have been ten times better if Mr. de Winters had been the main character. Yes, the secret twist would have been ruined, but we would have a character with action, with ability. A character that does more than bemoan her lank, overly-straight hair. Seriously.

I will say however, that the second half of the book wasn't bad. It was fast paced (especially in comparison to what had come before it). If you like a good romance and don't mind an empty narrator (a la Bella Swan), then this book might be just up your alley.

Honestly, I probably won't give Ms. du Maurier a second chance. Rebecca, her supposed opus, was mediocre at best. Ah, well. Better luck next time.

On the Importance of Reading Modern Fiction

In my creative writing class, we've been workshopping everyone's final projects. One classmate's work in particular prompted me to write this post.

Pic by enchantedwhispersart.deviantart.com

He's a good poet. He's smart. He's my friend.

But his prose leaves much to be desired.

As a self-professed reader of only books from 100+ years ago, he writes in a stilted, overdone way. His sentences are long and cumbersome. He uses too many ... shall I say grandiose? ... words all together. It feels like he's trying so hard to sound like Dickens. Or Wilde. Or Proust. Or, god help us, Sir Walter Scott.

Basically, his writing is stunted.

As a writer, it's important to read everything. Classics. Contemporaries. Fiction. Nonfiction. You should read everything you can get your hands on. If you purposefully cut yourself off from a section of writings (especially one as large as the body of work produced in the last 100 years!) you are doing yourself a disservice. Your writing will suffer.

So I've decided to get him a few new(ish) books for his upcoming birthday. These are examples of fiction written within the last hundred years that I feel every writer (and reader) should experience.

1. Catch-22

"He was going to live forever or die in the attempt."

Catch-22, published in 1961, is a work of satirical genius by Joseph Heller. Taking place during WWII, Catch-22 captures the insanity, the desperation, the rage, the inevitability of war. Written in non-chronological 3rd person, it follows Air Force captain, Yossarian, who hates war. Yossarian's central conundrum is that if he is crazy, he'll be discharged. But he has to apply for said discharge and applying for said discharge demonstrates that he is not insane, thereby no longer qualifying for the discharge. For him, there is no way out of war. 

The narrative itself is circular and reflects the nature of the "Catch 22" conundrum. It's a great study in the devolution of a character into insanity. Heller's language is clear and powerful. His characters are unforgettable. It's hard to explain Catch-22 to someone who has not read it because it is so singular - so completely different from anything else that I've read.

2. Slaughterhouse-Five

"Nothing intelligent can be said about a massacre."

In keeping with my first suggestion, here is another experimental, WWII, and entirely singular book - Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, published 1969. I've reviewed this book before (you can read my review here). Like Catch-22, Slaugherhouse-Five is shockingly revolutionary and completely different from Heller's opus. Again, it's hard to explain Vonnegut's most famous work. Actually it's pretty hard to explain any of Vonnegut. He writes a little left of reality and Slaughterhouse-five is no different. Jumping between the fantastical and the devastating, Vonnegut captures the essence of surrealism without dissolving into the abstract or the detached. Billy Pilgrim is the quintessential unreliable narrator and the book forces the reader to question reality at every turn. What is real? What is delusion? Is there actually a difference? Vonnegut's writing is gorgeous - sometimes whimsical, sometimes bare and raw. Strange. Startling. Disturbing. This book is definitely worth the read. 

3. The Cider House Rules

"People only ask questions when they're ready to hear the answers."

John Irving is by far one of the most skilled writers working today. The Cider House Rules, published in 1985, is astounding. It follows Homer Wells, an orphan who never gets adopted. Instead he begins to learn the business of medicine as instructed by Dr. Wilbur Larch, head of the orphanage and the only doctor around who is willing to perform abortions. As my mother is fond of saying, all of Irving's books are about sex and perversion, and The Cider House Rules is no different. But instead of coming off as sensationalist or cheap, Irving writes about the difficulty of living. The difficulty of being human. It is the most honest look at one of the most controversial topics of our time. In the guise of empathetic characters and beautiful language, Irving forces you to examine your own beliefs - your own choices. An orphan or an abortion?

4. The Poisonwood Bible

"God doesn't need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves." 

The Poisonwood Bible is easily my favorite work of contemporary fiction (again, here's my full review). Published in 1998, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is the story of five women and the missionary husband/father/abuser they follow. Travelling half a world away, from Georgia to the Belgian Congo in the 1960s, the Price family women each get their own POV. All five parts are written in first person and all five are incredibly distinctive. There's never any confusion over who's who and the shear technical ability Kingsolver displays here is worth the read. The fact that Kingsolver's technical talent is alloyed with a spectacularly compelling story makes this a rare find and a necessary addition to any personal library. The Poisonwood Bible is an astounding work woven of technical ability, social consciousness, and the intimacy of a family struggling to survive the ravages of the Congo and of their father.

5. 1Q84

"But pure, unadulterated feelings are dangerous in their own way. It is no easy feat for a flesh-and-blood human being to go on living with such feelings."

Published as three separate novels in Japan over 2009 and 2010, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami is an excellent example of where modern fiction can go. In a way, it follows in the surrealist footsteps of Vonnegut and presents a world that is just slightly left of reality. The book uses the term "1Q84" to show the slight difference of this new world the characters stumbled into from the one they left, back in the normal 1984. Again, even that is a nod to previous work - this time George Orwell's infamous dystopia. In my previous review, I introduced the book by calling it an asymmetrical fairy tale. Murakami successfully captures the juxtaposition of a pre-mobile phone world and post-modern philospophy in his unique poetic style. While the book is definitely complex (and crammed together into a gigantic volume when it was translated to English), it's definitely worth the read.

It's very very difficult to pick only five books from the last 100 years and there are so many more that are worth your time. 

The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker. The Lord of the Rings (1937-1949) by J.R.R. Tolkien. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee. The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood. Ender's Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card. Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury. The Phantom Tollbooth (1961) by Norman Juster.

And on and on an on and on, ad infinitum. As a writer, it's so important to read everything. Just read. Read every moment you can. 

Perhaps Stephen King said it best. If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time nor tools to write.

Orange is the New Black Season Two: A Quick Review

So as many of you are aware, Netflix released Season Two of Orange is the New Black last week. So of course I watched it in the first two or three days.

I, like many others, fell desperately in love with the women of Litchfield prison during Season One and waited (im)patiently for my next fix. Well, it's finally here. And it's over. Again.

So while we're waiting for Season Three (fingers crossed), I thought I'd share some of my thoughts.

1) I'm glad they're getting away from Piper's story.

Yes, I like Piper. Yes, there's plenty of drama and conflict to keep me interested, but honestly I love finding out more about the other women. Let's face it. Piper's your pretty standard middle-class white girl who's never satisfied with what she's got. No judgement for those of you who love her. Heck, I basically AM her. Maybe that's why I tire so easily of her story.

So who wins for most interesting character of Season Two?

2) Poussey Washington

Seriously. She's basically my favorite now. Both her back story and in-prison story were spectacular. Wrought with emotion, sacrifice, courage, and damn good writing, Samira Wiley's incredible performance left me gobsmacked. 

Throughout the season, Poussey finds herself in intense situations. Between her unrequited love, her issues as a military brat, and the increasing violence of newcomer Vee, Poussey elevates the tone of Season Two. Her story goes beyond conventional genres, like OITNB as a whole, encompassing the best parts of comedy, drama, and tragedy. 

Basically I love this character. Period.

3) Speaking of Vee....

Finally we have someone who can actually challenge Red. Vee, a recidivist and drug dealer, has strings already tied to several of the main characters. She's a mother figure to Taystee, a some-times friend and rival to Red, and a hurricane of conflict all on her own. She's arguably one of the strongest characters in the cast. She's smart, manipulative, and as solid as concrete. That said, I still can't decide if I like her. And "like" may not be the right word in any case, as the writers very solidly cast her as the villain. Honestly, I wish we'd gotten more of her backstory. It might have made her motivations more understandable if not all together sympathetic.

4) Was it as good as Season One?

Honestly, that's hard to say. Part of what made Season One so freaking amazing is that I'd never seen anything like it. It came out of left-field and shone like a beacon in a sea of television mediocrity. I think Season Two holds its own when it comes to writing, performance, and humor, but it lacks the intrinsic shock value of Season One. This time I was expecting greatness. And it delivered. Maybe not as intensely as the first season, but yes. Season Two is great. 

So there you have it. How far have you watched? Who's your favorite character? Let me know what you think in the comments! 

The Classics Project: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is the debut novel of Carson McCullers. It centers around a deaf/mute man named Singer and the people that he attracts to him.

Before I get into my review too much, I do want to say I think this book is worth a read. It's very different from anything I've read before and I think it will take me a while to decided if I "liked" it. But it did make me think. There are also several spoilers, but I've tried to leave out the major turning points. So read ahead at your own discretion.

The main characters are Singer, his deaf/mute friend Antonapoulos, the tomboyish and musically inclined young girl Mick Kelly, the educated and idealistic black physician Dr. Copeland, the alcoholic would-be labor organizer Jake Blount, and the observant Biff Brannon who owns a local all-night diner.

McCullers weaves these characters around each other in a vast tapestry of a late 1930s Southern town. There's nothing particularly special about Singer (except for maybe his vast patience), but he pulls the lonely and downtrodden to him with a gravitational-like force. Each of the side characters are attracted to Singer because he is a deaf/mute who is willing to let them talk. They come to him individually and talk endlessly about themselves and their own lives, imagining that Singer is the one person who really understands them. Because of his silence, he becomes a reflection of them.

I almost pitied Singer his unfounded confidant status except that he does the exact same thing with his deaf/mute friend. Singer who uses sign language talks endlessly to Antonapoulos who doesn't. Singer is absolutely certain that his friend understands him without any evidence of it.

I thought the book would go on to some kind of commentary about how relationships that are based on false pretenses (seeing as how none of the characters actually understand each other) are ultimately unsatisfying, but no. Everyone seems completely happy as long as they have someone to talk at. When circumstances take that away they are exactly where they began or worse off. At one point, two of the secondary characters that have quite a lot in common actually get together and talk to each other. They end up not only not satisfied, but furious. Like they are just happier when the person they're talking to doesn't talk back.

The only character that seems to have any clue at all is the diner owner, Biff Brannon. He watches all of these people hover around Singer like moths around a nightlight. He knows that each of them are just projecting themselves onto Singer and he doesn't understand why they're all satisfied. In the end, nothing really changes even for him.

At times, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter seems so pointlessly nihilistic and at others it's like I'm the only one not getting it. I've read a lot of reviews of this book and, honestly, I feel like the readers are projecting themselves onto the book just like the characters and Singer. They make something larger out of what's there and everyone's satisfied. While I do think the book is worth a read, I don't think it's some amazing masterpiece. There are a lot of details that bothered me, but even the big picture seemed somehow less than what I'd expected.

Carson McCullers is a good technical writer and I would be interested in reading another of her books, but The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is by no means one of my favorite classics.

The Classic Project Extras: To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is arguably one of the great American novels. The reason this book wasn't on my Classic Project list from the beginning is that I've already read it. Like most people my age, I read it in school, but I picked it up again as inspiration for my new novel which will be part of the "Southern Literature" genre that Harper Lee's masterpiece exemplifies.

So here's a Classics Project Extra of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

When I read this in my early teens, I fell in love. Harper Lee has both a mastery of the language and the ability to tell moving stories. But in rereading this as an adult, there was a lot I missed in the first reading.

Even though Scout, the main character, is younger than I was when I read the book, as a reader I related more to her point of view and saw the world through her eyes. Given my age and the fact that it is written in first person, that's understandable. But now, as an adult, it's fascinating to see what I missed. I had little to no understanding of most of the adults' true motivations or the full depth of material. I missed most of the winks and nods that Harper Lee deftly wove in and that Scout, too, missed entirely.

One thing that struck me on this read-through (that the first time I accepted without question) was the casualness with which Scout views oppression. I grew up in a small Southern town that still had de facto segregation, so Scout's world wasn't too far off from my own. Now, with a decade of detachment from that small town, the institutionalized racism is shocking and intense. Before, much like Scout, I understood that that was just the way things were. Now it colored my reading with a darker hue.

Which brings me to perhaps the crux of the book.

Most people see To Kill a Mockingbird as Harper Lee's love letter to her father, and as a daughter of a terribly impressive and admirable man, I empathize with that facet of the novel, but for me there is a much more pressing issue presented.

SPOILERS AHEAD

In the book, Scout's father, Atticus Finch, is the defense attorney for a black man named Tom Robinson who is accused of raping a white woman. Her father defends his client despite the town's condemnation. He demonstrates the innocence - or at the very least the reasonable doubt of guilt - of his client, but the jury still finds the man guilty.

This is shown as a very small victory because the jury took so long to decide the defendant's fate. The book shows the hard struggle and sometimes inevitable defeat of the fight for equality, and I think that is all many readers take away from the trial.

Near the end of the book there is an incident where a recluse known as Boo Radley kills a man to protect Scout and her brother. Atticus and the Sheriff decide not to report the circumstances of the death because they don't want to force Boo Radley into the spotlight. Atticus tells Scout that forcing him into court would be the same as killing a mockingbird - destroying something precious that doesn't hurt anyone. So the death is reported as an accident and Boo Radley's name goes unmentioned.

Now I don't disagree with either of these lessons. 1) That even if you know you're going to lose, there are some fights worth fighting. 2) That the weak need to be protected for their own good but also for the good of the protectors.

What struck me was the intense juxtaposition between these two incidents. Tom Robinson, a black man, was forced to go to trial and sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit. Boo Radley, a white man, actually killed a man, and - though it was obviously in the defense of children - the truth is again hidden but this time to his benefit.

I'm still struggling to process how very wrong this situation is. Part of me truly understands Atticus and the Sheriff not wanting to get Boo involved, but at the same time this compromise of truth is tainted by the white privilege that Boo enjoys. Would the sheriff have been so understanding if a black man had killed a white man in defense of black children? Would Atticus? I would very much like to think they would, but I can't help but feel they wouldn't.

I know this makes the characters flawed and real, but if feels like the book doesn't even see extreme wrongness of the situation. Scout certainly doesn't and I really can't tell if Harper Lee did. The disparity and the lack of awareness illustrates the problem with institutionalized racism. Even the "progressive" characters fall easily into the established system of privilege and oppression.

I will read this book again as a parent and I will enjoy it as I did this time and the time before. As a child, I thought Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird was complex and nuanced. As an adult, I find it even more so and I have solid faith that each time I read it, I will find new, fascinating, and sometimes disturbing facets. And that's pretty much the ultimate compliment for any book.

The Classics Project: The Hunt for Red October

Life has been kind of crazy lately. I'm getting ready to move into a new place and I've started a new job. I actually finished reading this book a while ago, but never got around to writing the review, so please forgive its lateness.

The Classics Project presents The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy.

I selected this book to read next because I was so affected by The Color Purple that I needed something completely different. In a way, I had quite high expectations for Mr. Clancy because all through my childhood, I can remember my dad in his recliner, a thick Tom Clancy book in his hands. And, still through childhood's lens, I expected that anything my father loved, I would love.

Needless to say, the reality was completely different.

It's not that I disliked The Hunt for Red October, the famously exciting Cold War submarine exploit, it's just that it came nowhere near my expectations.

First off, Clancy's obsession with military minutiae was at best uninteresting and often tedious. For people who have an especial fascination with all things military, this book would be rich and satisfying, but for me, it fell flat. I really don't feel the need to narratively trace every step involved in satellite communication or the exact measurements of each switch and dial in a submarine.

This compulsion of Clancy's was made doubly dull by the fact that all of the technology in his book that is presented as so high tech is nearly thirty years old. I have a thorough understanding of modern technology that surpasses anything presented in this book. I understand that the book is limited by its time. It was published in 1984, and at the time things like wireless communication were exciting and new. Sadly, that excitement doesn't hold up through the years.

Which brings me to another point. The anachronistic Cold War attitude of the book was jarring for someone who was born in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. I did not grow up with the shadow of an imminent nuclear war or the fanatical patriotism that was so prevalent in the 1980s. Clancy takes every chance to declare how wonderful America and Freedom and "God and Country" are. He even takes especial pains to point out that Captain Ramius, the captain of the Soviet submarine, is not truly Russian because his mother was Lithuanian. You know ... so we can still cheer for him, because if he was Russian, how could any reader empathize? This narrow, black and white view of a very complex time comes off as pure propaganda and leaves a false, treacly impression in my mind.

From a purely analytical perspective, as a fellow author, I found Clancy's structure of the book weak. Jack Ryan is supposedly the protagonist of The Hunt for Red October, but I only know that because I've been told. I would've guessed that it was the more interesting character, Soviet captain Marko Ramius. The lack of depth in his protagonist is probably intrinsically connected to the book's format. Clancy jumps from viewpoint to viewpoint, giving the reader scenes from the POVs of all kinds of characters all over the Atlantic. While this does afford the reader a unique, big-picture view of the plot, it severely limits any character development.

Ultimately, there were several very thrilling scenes. Clancy can certainly amp up the excitement when he wants to, but thanks to the lack of interesting characters, the preponderance of military trivialities, and the anachronistic world view, I was left unsatisfied with The Hunt for Red October.

I think next time I'll just stick with the movie.

The Classics Project: The Color Purple

I know I wrote my review of Slaughterhouse Five just yesterday, but I literally read Alice Walker's The Color Purple in two evenings. I had actually been planning to read J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye next, but I was at the train station when I hit the abrupt ending of Slaughterhouse Five. My boyfriend and I had just been in an awesome little bookstore in downtown Denver called The Tattered Cover (check it out!) where I picked up a copy of Ms. Walker's classic for four dollars. So since Bob was still monopolizing my copy of Catcher, I started The Color Purple.

The Color Purple is the story of Celie, a young, bright, abused woman who gets married to spare her sister a life of drudgery and abuse. She and her sister become separated by men and time and continents. In many ways it's a story about a girl who finds what "God" means to her in a life of trials and hardships.

I can see why this book has so often been banned. On the very first page incestuous rape is mentioned casually as a fact of every day life. It goes on to question the idea of "God," the idea of marriage, of love. What does it mean to exist as a black woman in the pre-WWII South? Celie's experiences are heartbreaking, demeaning, intense, and, at times, beautiful. I cannot adequately describe how moving the story is. I can only say that there is a reason I finished it so quickly.

The book itself is an epistolary novel, meaning it is written as a series of letters. For the first half or more of the book, all of these letters are written by Celie and addressed "Dear God." As the story progresses we get to see some of Celie's sister, Nettie, and experience her life. Two very different lives - one in rural Georgia, one in the heart of the African Congo - are juxtaposed to show the growth of each sister. Both grow from young, victimized children to strong, compelling women.

One of the most spectacular elements, at least for me, is the language. Celie writes in a deep southern dialect and with little benefit of education. For most of the book I had to "hear" the words in my head to understand them, and at points, read them aloud. This may have slowed the speed of my reading a bit, but I got into the rhythm of Celie's speech surprisingly easily.

Having grown up in far South East Arkansas (where I was taught in social studies about the War of Northern Aggression), I was very familiar with this speech pattern. Many of the older people in the community spoke the same way as Celie so it was at once startling and comfortable for me. Much to my boyfriend's dismay, I fell back into those speech patterns myself. "What you doin'?" I asked at one point. He just stared up at me in horror.

Perhaps the most wonderful aspect - and one that shows Alice Walker's spectacular skill as a writer - is how organically poetry was woven into what some might think a backwoods, unrefined narrative. The story and the language itself become poetry.

He say, Celie, git the belt. The children be outside the room peeking through the cracks. It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how come I know trees fear man.

This awareness of the poetic is woven throughout what otherwise could become a depressing tale of oppression. But Alice Walker transcends individual sorrow, exposing the universal threads of womanhood, grief, and survival. This book is stunning. a beautiful and life changing read. I would read it again in a heartbeat.



And don't worry about me writing another Classics Project review tomorrow. I'm starting Anna Karenina and I dare say it'll take me longer than two evenings. Also, if you're interested, there is a wonderful documentary on Alice Walker by PBS's American Masters. You can watch it here.

The Poisonwood Bible: A Review

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is the best book I've read in a while. I'd heard it mention before, but I didn't know much about it. I bought it because it follows a zealous missionary family as they journey into the heart of the Congo in 1960 and I thought it would give me a good insight into the type of people that dedicate their life so zealously to their religion. I got more than I ever could have expected.

Instead of following the missionary himself, the story focuses on the women around him - his wife and four daughters. This is their story.

As a writer, arguably the most fascinating aspect of this book was its structure. It has five point-of-view characters, the mother and daughters, and each is written in first person. As someone who loves first person for its intimacy, this book is exactly what I picture when I say first person can be done amazingly. I've read a lot of articles and op-eds that declare first person the realm of the beginner. That true "literary" works are not written as such. That's complete bunk. Of course first person can be done badly. So can any POV. And, yes, first person may actually be more difficult to do well, but when someone with the skill of Ms. Kingsolver does it, it transcends all expectations.

Each character had such a uinique voice that even without the character's name at the beginning of each chapter, I would have known who was speaking. From the physical immediateness of little five year old Ruth May to the shallow, almost illiterate complaints of sixteen year old Rachel, each character achieves individuality. I'm sure this took a lot of work on the writer's part, but it comes off as so easy, so organic, I never once questioned the author's choice of POV.

The story itself weaves a complex tapestry of what counts as "everyday" life in the Congo with the vast socio-economic history of the region. The questions it forces its characters (and readers) to confront are intriguing and uncomfortable. It questions religion's place in a world where one person or one group of people hold such dominating power over others. From the abusive relationship between the father and his family to the abusive relationship between the colonial powers and their victim Africa. The Poisonwood Bible is a spectacular work of technical ability, social consciousness, and the intimacy of a family.

It is by far one of the best books I have ever read and I met its end with the melancholic regret of finishing a good book. I'm sure I'll pick it up again in my lifetime if for no other reason then to study the masterful writing technique of Barbara Kingsolver and her other books have earned a place on my to-read list.

“Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.” 

-The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

MaddAddam: A Book Review

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood is the third installment of her apocalyptic series that started way back in 2003 with the phenomenal Oryx and Crake. The series explores a world of powerful corporations and biotech and the consequences that a single individual's actions can have on the world.

Let me start by saying that I loved the first two books. Oryx and Crake was exciting and fascinating and set the apocalyptic stage perfectly. The Year of the Flood, the second book, is my personal favorite. It follows an extreme sect of environmental/religious fundamentalists and two of the members' survival before and after a plague known as the waterless flood. Both of these books raised significant questions not only about their fictional world, but about our world and our belief systems. They made me question myself and the culture I live in. They gave me a new way to think about our world.

Then comes the much-anticipated end of the series: MaddAddam. I live in a small town with only one bookstore and I bought the only copy they had on release day. I went home, read it, and finished it within a couple of days. So why has it taken me nearly two weeks to write my review?

Throughout my reading of this final book, I had mixed feelings. I love Margaret Atwood's writing style. She is eloquent and thoughtful and her word use is superb. I love the world she created. I love the characters. Yet...I did not love this book.

It was okay. It wasn't bad. It was significantly better than a lot of other stuff that manages to get published. But it wasn't "Margaret Atwood" good. It wasn't what I had come to expect ever since I picked up The Handmaid's Tale when I was a sophomore in high school. I was disappointed.

It's hard to convey just what that disappointment meant to me. I even tried to convince myself that I wasn't disappointed. I was just having a couple of "off" days. Maybe something else was stressing me out so I couldn't enjoy the book properly. Then I finished it and realized that, no, it wasn't me. For the first time, I was disappointed with a Margaret Atwood book.

I think the main reason the book was lacking in comparison to its predecessors was that the first two books were full of powerful questions. MaddAddam was full of answers, and, honestly, they weren't as satisfying as the questions. It felt like the entire book was an attempt by Margaret Atwood to tie up the loose ends of the first two books. It lacked the inspiration, the spark that brought the others to life. It felt like literary checkbook balancing. I think I would have been just as satisfied if she'd never have written this book. In other words, it was very anticlimactic.

For an author that is known for writing powerful and relevant speculative fiction, MaddAddam falls far short of the bar she set for herself. The writing is technically good and the characters are the same ones that we fell in love with in the first place, but the book itself did not meet my expectations.

I haven't read any other reviews and, frankly, I'm not interested in them. I understand that many people will probably rave about the book and it is good. Just not in comparison to her other works. This experience has been much more to me than just a disappointing read. It was a fall from grace. Margaret Atwood has always been my inspiration. The paragon I aspired to be like.

And she still is.

But now I know even the best authors can write mediocre books.

Book Review: IQ84 by Haruki Murakami

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami is an asymmetrical, deeply intriguing fairytale. Told from radically different perspectives, Murakami weaves together a picture of the past, present, and possible futures. He places the story in the past (1984) while simultaneously creating futuristic events and an alternate timeline, namely the world of 1Q84. This juxtaposition of a pre-mobile phone world and post-modern philosophy creates a captivating and poetic style.

While at points the plot can drag – and I’m still not certain why American publishers decided to print three books as one gigantic volume – the premise proved interesting enough to keep me going.

The main characters, like the world itself, can at times be both relatable and frustrating. Tengo, an oblivious aspiring-author, seems to wander through his world unable to grasp the indefinable strangeness around him until he meets Fuka-eri. A high-schooler with an improbably good story to tell, the eccentric Fuka-eri breaks into Tengo’s dull life like a wave crashing into a sandcastle. He is transfixed by this unusual girl and falls in love with her story more than with her. He becomes her ghost-writer, an act which wrenches him out of his casual, uninteresting life and lands him squarely in a world that is quite literally stranger than fiction.

Meanwhile, Aomame, a fierce yet flawed character who at first appears utterly detached from the main story descends into the world 1Q84 in an abrupt and observable fashion. Reflecting the two worlds she inhabits, she leads a dual life of energetic fitness trainer-cum-righteous assassin. Slowly, her own life becomes more and more entangled with the parallel stories of Tengo and Fuka-eri.

Aside from a single shared moment in their childhood, Tengo and Aomame have in common a deep and unsettling emptiness. Both have tried to fill it in their own ways, Tengo with words and Aomame with deeds, but both remain unsatisfied. As they attempt to navigate the world of 1Q84, they come closer and closer to each other and fulfillment.

Fuka-eri herself is actually not so much a character as a convenient plot-device. Her behavior is strange and her responses unpredictable and emotionless. Rather than being portrayed as the abused child that she is, she’s set up as some sort of spiritual receptacle. Here Murakami dives into a deeply disturbing plot twist that forces the reader to reconsider their basic moral ideas.

As a reader, I was both profoundly revolted and unrelentingly curious. Did I actually fully grasp the concepts presented to me? Was I capable of forming moral judgments on something so entirely foreign? I’m still not comfortable with the aspects of sexual exploitation and abuse that are addressed by this book, but perhaps that was the writer’s goal. Murakami’s magnum opus constantly circles in on itself taking the reader to deeper and deeper levels of plot and morality. The cyclical nature of change and duality, of both the world and the characters, is captured in a single well-illustrated metaphor: the double moon in the sky of 1Q84.

Although there are times when it feels as if the writer wanders through his world as unwittingly as his character Tengo and many instances where Murakami failed to “kill his darlings,” the prose is ultimately successful.  The writing, as strange as the story itself, is perhaps a result of translation from the original Japanese, but with his startling and unusual style of prose, Murakami surpasses any language barriers. The writing became itself a character in this intricately crafted story. Murakami’s world and lyrical use of language mesh inextricably.

For those of you willing to devote a significant amount of time and brainpower to this book, you will be rewarded with a world of unflinching strangeness and beauty that forces you to question your own concepts of religion, love, and even reality. What would happen if one day you descended into a world that, while similar to you own, was ever so slightly different? What would you do if you looked up to find two moons in your once familiar sky?