Rabbit, Run

The first time I read Rabbit Run I was 19 and working overnights, trying anything I could think to keep myself awake. The result of these two things were that I either missed or didn't understand a lot of it. This is a book for grown-ups, which is not to say anything about age necessarily but just that it handles topics and themes that are maybe best dealt with after a little bit of life experience. Also, don't let the cover mislead you: this is not a book about basketball.

Readability: A moderately difficult read. Not dense in terms of the wording but in terms of EMOTIONS. If you don't like emotions, you probably won't like this book. But if you give yourself a chance to get into it the characters are engaging and it moves fairly quickly.

Enjoyability: 5 stars; this book is SO GOOD. It is incredibly well written and heart-string-tugging and leaves you feeling like you just experienced something along with the characters. But don't let's confuse enjoyable with uplifting, because pretty much nothing happens that is. With the exception of the birth of Rabbit's daughter, Rebecca June, and the conversation he has with his wife Janice just afterwards when she is all doped up. Other than those 20 or so pages, though, it's kind of a downer. Don't say I didn't warn you, but read it anyway!

Favorite character: One of the things I like best about this book is that all the characters seem so much like real people. They have strengths but they also have flaws, which makes it hard for any of them to be my favorite. I guess I would say Eccles, the Episcopalian minister who befriends Harry after he leaves his wife. He is so earnest and well-meaning, and takes his responsibility so seriously. I love the descriptions of him interacting with people ("When he does come in, at quarter of 11, it turns out he's been sitting in a drugstore gossiping with some of his teenagers; the idiotic kids tell him everything, all smoking like chimneys, so he comes home titillated silly with "how far" you can "go" on dates and still love Jesus"), and how he talks to his daughters, and that he takes Harry golfing. He's genuine and good, but still struggling enough to seem real. Honorable mention has to go to Nelson, Rabbit and Janice's 2 year old son. He's precious, and probably the one you feel most sorry for because none of it is his fault but he has to deal with all the drama anyway.


Most un-favorite character: Much like the real world, no one in this book is completely demon-izable or without redeeming features. Even the most horrific things that happen occur in a way that you understand what led up to them and WHY. The person I dis-liked the most through most of the book was Harry's mother. She just seems cranky and miserly with her son's affection, first glad because he leaves Janice and then mad at him when he goes back (basically the opposite of everyone else). But she redeems herself at the... end. Can't say when or how - you'll have to read it yourself.

Best Quotes:

"I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate."

"If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price."

"Though the apartment is empty, it is yet so full of Janice he begins to tremble; the sight of that easy chair turned to face the television attacks his knees. Nelson's broken toys on the floor derange his head; all the things inside his skull, the gray matter, the bones of his ear, the apparatus of his eyes, seem clutter clogging the tube of his self; his sinuses choke, with a sneeze or tears he doesn't know. The living room smells of desertion." Recommended for: People who just like well-written novels, people who are okay with moral ambiguity, ex-athletes wresting with the meaning of life.

Run, Rabbit, Run!

Rabbit, Run by John Updike was not really the book I was expecting. No, it's not a novel akin to Watership Down. It's also not really a story about a running basketball player (the only clue I could glean from my copy of the book). It is, in fact, a book about a man, Rabbit Angstrom, trying to escape his suffocating 1950s suburban life, and not really succeeding.


Readability: It's an easy book to read. My one problem was that parts failed to keep my attention and some descriptions just went on too long.


Enjoyability: This is one of those novels that for the longest time meander about and never seem to get to the point. That being said, I'm still not sure what the point is other than living in the 'burbs sucks, you can never really escape your family and don't go too crazy when you have your quarter life crisis.


Favorite quote(s):
"he knows so well the propulsive power of a wrong, the way a man battles against it and each futile blow sucks the air emptier until it seems the whole frame of blood and bone must burst in a universe that can be such a vacuum."

"You do things and do things and nobody really has a clue."

"What is this? He has a sensation of touching glass. He doesn't know if they are talking about nothing or making code for the deepest meanings."

"...hate suits him better than forgiveness. Immersed in hate, he doesn't have to do anything; he can be paralyzed, and the rigidity of hatred makes a kind of shelter for him."


Favorite character: Rabbit Angstrom. He is an interesting character, and a large part of what makes Updike's writing so good. On the outside Rabbit is a real asshole. He's selfish, abandons his family, treats most people around him like they are below him, is sexist and is generally an all around not so good guy. On this inside though Rabbit isn't so bad. He's trying to do right by everyone, even if he fails miserably at it.


Least favorite character: I don't know that I have one. I hated most of the characters in this book at some point but Updike manages complicate issues to a point where I don't feel that hatred is justified by the end of the book.


Social impact: Apparently this novel was considered pretty racy when it first came out. My copy of the novel states that, "Rabbit, Run is a shocking novel-not only because of its sexual candor, but because it challenges an image of life still cherished in America." I agree with this but apparently people in the 1960s couldn't handle it.


Greatest impact: There's a horrifying scene. You'll know it when you get there. Although, it's written so well that I'm slightly afraid it could happen to me someday...


Recommended for: People who like a good 'ol American Novel. Anti-American novel? Whatever.


Overall: I liked it, though not in the way I expected to. The characters are really well written. Also, Updike is kinda a hottie in this picture. Too bad he's dead...

I know, I said Rabbit, Run was next...but I just had to get this one done. MIDDLEMARCH BY GEORGE ELLIOT

Ooh my god. This book took me almost exactly a year of on-again, off-again, self-inflicted reading to finish. Note to others: do not try to read Middlemarch while you are in the middle of a masters program. Quite honestly, I’m having a difficult time writing this review because I really don’t want to think about this book anymore…we’ll see how well I far I get…also, not so sure I’m going to greenlight this one.

Middlemarch is subtitled A Study of Provincial Life. Now doesn’t that just sound riveting? It is the story of the members of a fictional town in England called Middlemarch in the 1830s. This book has a massive list of characters and covers many, many, subjects, but they’re basically the ones you’d expect from a novel of the time—marriage, the state of women, class, farming, medical practices, inheritance, religious experiences, and political reform. I know, you’re chewing at the bit to read this book. The central characters in Middlemarch are Dorthea Brooke, an idealistic bu,t sometimes foolish, young woman and Doctor Lydgate, a doctor, obviously. For the most part I enjoyed Dorthea’s storyline but not so much Lydgate’s…so there goes half the book.

Readability: The writing is dense, and a bit preachy. There were some sections I would be completely enjoying and then the book would take a nasty turn into the ramblings of old grumpy medical men, or gossip about some character I couldn’t remember. Also, it’s waaaaay too long.

Enjoyability (is that a word?): I’ll say I enjoyed parts of this book. I wish I had my own personal editor who would take out all the unnecessary jaunts into subjects completely unrelated to the storyline. In some books this works, but in this one it was just boring.

Favorite quote(s):

"I would not creep along the coast but steer out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars."

"But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope."

“What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?”

“Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot?”

“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us.”

Favorite character: Dorthea, the main female protagonist. She makes many bad decisions and is stubborn, idealistic and dog

matic to a fault but her heart is in the right place. From a feminist perspective it bums me out a little bit that this independent woman ends up subordinate to two men and doesn’t end up following her passion

to be a great benefactor to society. Ooh well, the times, the times.

Least favorite character: Mr. Casaubon, Dorthea’s husband. Seriously, this man is horrible. He’s a jealous, suspicious intellectual who never really did anything with his life, and this makes him bitter, understandably so I suppose.

Social impact: A part of this novel that I wish I knew more about, being a political science major and all, were the aspects relating to the reform movement in England. The book takes place at a time when Parliament was in the process of being restructured in England. While I found some of this interesting, it was confusing because the author assumes you know exactly what happened in the movement and, not being an expert in 19^th century British politics, I don’t. It was also written by a woman—something not all that common at the time (thus the pen name).

Greatest impact: Sheer length.

Recommended for: People who want their reading stamina challenged by a novel. Anyone who enjoys 19^th century English romances, think Jane Austen but not as witty and longer. People interested in the English class system, position of women, social relations farming techniques and medical practices.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a book my mother has been telling me to read for at least a decade, and for some reason I never felt drawn to it... part of me was convinced it was going to turn out to be a terrible romance novel. Mom, you were right: I am so, so glad I read this book. The jacket of my copy says it is about "the ultimate inconsolability and incurability of the human soul," and that about sums it up. Read it!

Readability: Very readable. A little slow at times, and compared to some books not a lot HAPPENS, but the language is beautiful and the characters are engaging.

Enjoyability: I really enjoyed this book. Again, not a lot of action, but the intimate portraits painted of avariety of characters who are both very different and have fundamental similarities are just beautiful. This is a novel characteristic of the South, with lots of similarities to Faulkner or even Harper Lee, and the slower pace seems to fit the time and the sensibility of the story. It is enjoyable too because this book deals with issues of the human spirit: loneliness, connections between people, misunderstanding, and also more tangible struggles like alcoholism, poverty, suicide, and racism. McCullers could easily have approached any one of these with a heavy hand and a message or a point, but she paints the picture and then allows the reader to draw their own conclusion.

Favorite character: Most intriguing to me is Mr. Singer, the deaf-mute who works as an engraver in a silver shop, who cares passionately about his dear friend Antonapoulos and somewhat paradoxically becomes the confidant for many of the other characters. His anonymity and inability to react results in other characters projecting their thoughts, cares, and worries onto him, and he becomes a sort of vessel for holding these. I won't ruin everything and give the ending away, but let's just say it is shocking and unexpected. Intrigued? You should be.

Honorable mention for favorite character goes to Mick, the young girl who wants nothing more than to make music.

Most un-favorite character: I was not a big fan of Jake Blount, the hard-drinking wanderer. Not a lot of redeeming qualities, as far as I'm concerned.

Best Quotes:

"Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them."

"How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?"

"the way i need you is a loneliness i cannot bear."

"Then suddenly he felt a quickening in him. His heart turned and he leaned his back against the counter for support. For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor. Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who—one word—love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him he felt a warning, a shaft of terror... he was suspended between radiance and darkness. Between bitter irony and faith."

Recommended for: Fans of Southern literature, people drawn to the struggles of humanity (I know that sounds broad and metaphysical, but really), people who are okay with a book where nothing blows up.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Look at this picture. Seriously. This sad looking lady is Carson McCullers, the author of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.


This is a novel about the socially maladjusted. People who feel strongly but have difficulty connecting.

It is one of those books that I had picked up for years at bookstores, read the blurb on the back, and decided it wasn’t for me. I mean, much as I love southern novels, the sentence, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter tells an unforgettable tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s,” just doesn’t do it. Also, why does the cover have a not-so-great picture of a sad looking woman on it? What I’m rambling towards, is I think this book has been poorly marketed. In reality, it’s a heartbreaking story of loneliness, longing, and our inability to connect to each other despite wanting more than anything to do so.

Enjoyability: In some ways this book was a rough read for me. I recognized painful aspects of myself in some of the characters. I had flashbacks to my own teen years when reading about Mick, the teen girl in the story. But this is part of what makes the book so good. We all have times of loneliness and so can identify with the characters even though they lead very different lives.

Readability: An easy read. The prose is smooth and, while not much happens, I found myself anticipating what would happen to the characters

Favorite Quotes: "But say a man does know. He sees the world as it is and he looks back thousands of years to see how it all come about. He watches the slow agglutination of capital and power and he sees its pinnacle today. He sees America as a crazy house... He sees a whole damn army of unemployed and billions of dollars and thousands of miles of land wasted... He sees how when people suffer just so much they get mean and ugly and something dies in them. But the main thing he sees is that the whole system of the world is built on a lie. And although it's as plain as the shining sun—the don't-knows have lived with that lie so long they just can't see it."

“This was her, Mick Kelly, walking in the daytime and by herself at night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all the plans and feelings. This music was her—the real plain her...This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen... Now that it was over there was only her heart beating like a rabbit and this terrible hurt.”

“And as there was no way to disprove these rumors they grew marvelous and very real. Each man described the mute as he wished him to be."

Favorite Character: Mick. She is an angry, lonely, disconnected and awkward but she loves music more than anything, even though she has no real access to instruments or radio, and through this love for music we get to see another side of her.

Greatest Impact: I just noticed that this book is on Oprah’s book club. Eew. That aside, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was written by a 23 year old white woman, in the south, in the 1940s AND deals sensitively with poverty, racism, discrimination, socialism etc. etc—all topics that were pretty controversial at the time. Pretty neat, and gutsy.

Recommended For: People who like southern novels (you know—racial tensions, hot nights, dusty streets, poverty, injustice, violence—all that) but told from a slightly different perspective. Only the lonely (Dum dum dum, dummy doo wah).

The Yacoubian Building

Readability:
I feel it necessary to make a distinction here. This is not a book that is hard to read - the language is straight forward, the story easy to follow, etc. But note that it took me two months to finish this book, because I just had a hard time making myself sit down and read it. While vaguely interesting, I didn't feel any sense of connection to the characters or to what they go through. So while I didn't find it hard to read, I did find it hard to make myself read it.

Enjoyability:
I am so disappointed not to like this book. I was excited about it - a book from a non-Western writer that the back cover claims is about "flawed and fragile humanity," particularly about Egyptian society and the juxtaposition between the current era and the values and traditions of the past. Sounds promising, right? Unfortunately... how do I say this nicely? I hated it. The story moved around too much, the characters were flawed to the point of not being relatable or even likable, although sensitive topics like homosexuality and women's rights were covered in what might seem to some a "progressive way," I felt like they were included for the sake of including them and the bias and values of Al Aswany himself were what really showed through. There are places where a character or story line becomes engaging for a time, but as a whole I found this book frustrating and disappointing.

Favorite character: Probably Busayna, just because I felt sorry for her. She is a young girl who ends up doing some fairly un-savory things out of financial obligation for her family, and she struck me as one of the strongest characters. The frustrating of her story is that she ultimately marries someone who does not seem fit for her with only a brief explanation of how or why this would happen, and the ending is rushed - what about all the trauma she went through? And then she fell in love and everything was hunky dory? I don't think so. It didn't feel credible, and I wish we would have seen more emotional depth from her.

Most un-favorite character: Sooo many to choose from. Practically all the characters besides Busayna are just jerks in one way or another, taking advantage of each other or being corrupt or what have you. I may have to pick Hatim Rasheed, who is a wealthy newspaper man who is an extremely unhappy person, largely because he is gay and lives in a society that does not accept that and largely views him as morally reprehensible. What I couldn't stand about him is how he treats this guy that he supposedly loves, and is just horrible to - manipulative, coercive, etc. I can almost never condone violence, but this is a case when I'm tempted to say he got what he deserved.

Best Quotes:
Whatever.

Recommended for:
People who want to learn about modern Egyptian society, people who like to read about scandal but don't mind unsatisfying endings, people who can read a whole book even when they don't care about any of the characters.

Want a better version of this style of novel, with focus on multiple story lines and culture? See Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey, or Home Town by Tracy Kidder for a non-fiction version. Both of them are excellent.

The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany

This is going to have to be a bit of a different review, not only because I no longer have access to the book (I know, I could check it out from the library...but that takes work) but also because it isn't going to make the cut, GASP!

We originally put this novel on the list because we were looking to add a bit of, shall we say, diversity to the list. Like the halls of congress, the western literary world is littered with old dead white guys with the occasional woman/minority thrown in. This book is apparently the highest selling book in the Arab speaking world, but I suppose we should not have confused popularity for quality. That's not to say it's a bad book, just not good enough to make the list.

The Yacoubian Building is the story of the residents of the Yacoubian Building, a real-life building in downtown Cairo. It jumps around between the lives of those who live in shacks on the roof of the building and those who live in the run down opulence below them. Almost exactly like the book cover above, whoa.

Readability: Easily read. My only issue was keeping track of names (probably due to my unfortunate ignorance of Arabic names) and difficulty with transitions between story lines.

Enjoyability: I never really got into it. I just kept reading it to, well, finish it, and then pawned it off on a friend as soon as possible (and I have a book collecting addiction, to a serious degree).

Favorite quote(s):,Favorite character:, Least favorite character: Yep, don't have the book anymore...

Social impact: As I said earlier, this is the top-selling novel in the Arab world and it does deal with many an important, and controversial, issue-homosexuality, terrorism, women's roles/sexuality, poverty etc. but it deals with them in a way that, no offense intended, feels very stale, old-fashioned and sometimes insulting. I know, I should step back and view this from the position of someone in the Arab world where ideas like those explored in this book probably are fairly revolutionary but, from by white-person-privileged-American perspective it just doesn't work. It's sometimes like reading an 'enlightened' Victorian talk about 'women's problems.'

Greatest impact: I found the transition of one of the characters from a bright boy living in poverty to member of a terrorist cell fascinating.


Recommended for: People interested in learning more about Egyptians and Egyptian society, from a fairly mediocre book.

Overall: Eh.