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.