Sons and Lovers, take 1

Well well, Sons and Lovers. This is one of those books that has been sitting on my to-read shelf for a long, long time, and not I can't quite remember why. Let me be honest: if it weren't for this project, I probably wouldn't ever have finished it. That said... Sons and Lovers is a story that is many things: history, family saga, autobiography, and a passionate tale of love between... mother and son.

Readability: Not too bad, really. The language isn't too difficult, except for when Mr. Morel opens his mouth. Good thing he's so irrelevant, because if he talked more I'm not sure I could have handled it. Example: "You'll be havin' th' roof in, one o' thse days.' An' I says, tha'd better stan' on a bit o' clunch, then, an' hold it up wi' thy 'ead. So 'e wor that mad, 'e cossed an' e' swore, an' t'other chaps they did laugh." Okay, so he's a miner, but the colloquial bits are hard to get through.

Enjoyability: I would give it 2 of 5 stars. I thought it was repetitive, somewhat boring, and I didn't really like any of the characters.
And seriously, every other minute Lawrence describes someone as 'and then he loved her,' and then 5 seconds later says 'and then he hated her.' The characters are all petty and cruel to eachother, even when they're in love. Redeeming qualities? I did really like the last few pages, when Paul is coming to terms with being alone in the world and is having to make the ultimate choice between life and death. The writing is just lovely, and it made me wish there had been a bit more of that earlier on.

Best quote:
"Where was he?--one tiny upright speck of flesh, less than an ear of wheat lost in the field. He could not bear it. On every side the immense dark silence seemed pressing him, so tiny a spark, into extinction, and yet, almost nothing, he could not be extinct. Night, in which everything was lost, went reaching out, beyond stars and sun. Stars and sun, a few bright grains, went spinning round for terror, and holding each other in embrace, there in a darkness that outpassed them all, and left them tiny and daunted. So much, and himself infinitesimal, at the core of nothingness, and yet not nothing."

Favorite/least favorite characters: This is going to sound sexist, but I basically hated all the male characters. Mr. Morel is an abusive alcoholic, William is a bully, Paul is a jerk and a self-centered baby. I wasn't super fond of any of the women, either - Mrs. Morel loves her children but is super clingy and cares more about herself then about them being happy. Clara intrigued me - a suffragette! But she too lets Paul treat her badly and then goes back to her jerk of a husband. Poor Miriam also allows Paul to treat her badly and is kind of pathetic. Annie is one person I wanted to hear more from - she is barely mentioned, except at the very end. I know this is sometimes considered a very modern model for it's time, but the gender roles are as entrenched here as anywhere.

Modern day equivalent of the Morel family: Arrested Development's the Bluths, of course. Mr. Morel is George Bluth, the figure head, but who actually doesn't have the most power in the family. Mrs. Morel is Lucille, the person who actually holds the power, and clings obsessively to her children. William is Michael, the eldest and most ambitious. William, for obvious reasons (no spoilers here though!), can't "keep the family together," and is actually quite an ass. Annie is Lindsey, Arthur is Job (rash, terrible decision maker, not bothered about much by the family), and of course Paul is Buster. The comparisons are endless - Paul is in love with his mother, refuses to commit to either of the age-appropriate women in his life because of his mother, etc. etc. The best example? Paul says "No, mother - I really don't love her. I talk to her, but I want to come home to you!" Okay, Paul, we know. If there was a 'Motherboy' dance in 1900, you would have been there.

Social impact: At the time Sons and Lovers first came out, it was one of the first books to look at the lives of the lower classes and I agree it does a good job showing us what their lives were like. It also examines sexuality much more openly than other literature of the time, although I'm not sure this is a strength - parts of this read like a bad romance novel.

A second look at Nine Stories

I should probably preface this by saying that I plan to name my first child Seymour. Yes, as in see more glass. So I will try to be objective in relating my thoughts on Nine Stories, but… don’t you say that I didn’t warn you.

Readability: Think a good book is always dense and full of long sentences and extra adjectives? Wrong, and this is the book that proves it. This is a book to read on a long rainy weekend, and it won’t take much longer because you won’t want to put it down.

Enjoyability: Extraordinary. I feel like some short stories are sort of hard to get into, and then by the time you have they are over. But with Salinger’s stories I feel in it, right away, and then I’m just sad when they’re over. These stories make me happy, sad, wistful, hopeful, laugh (yes, out loud… and I’m not being facetious, they really do). This is a book that I want to re-read often, and have, and will.

Best quotes:
"The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid."
- de Daumier-Smith

"I want them to have a nice time while they're alive, because they like having a nice time.. but they don't love me and Booper - that's my sister - that way. I mean they don't seem agble to love us just the way we are. They don't seem able to love us unl3ess they can keep changing us a little bit. They love their reasons for loving us almost as much as they love us, and most of the time more. It's not so good, that way."
- Teddy

"I remember wanting to do something about that enormous-faced wristwatch she was wearning - perhaps suggest that she try wearing it around her waist."
- X

Favorite story: Hard to choose… I love ‘Down at the Dinghy,’ ‘Bananafish,’ and ‘For Esme – With Love and Squalor’ so much I hardly know what to say about them. That they are charming and sad and perfect, I suppose. But in this re-reading of Nine Stories I was unexpectedly struck by ‘The Laughing Man.’ I love picturing a bus full of adoring ten-year-old boys, listening rapturously to their leader as he tells stories about a renegade hero whose hides his hideous face (smashed in a vice by kidnappers when he was a young child, of course) behind a red veil. And then being stunned and heart broken when… well, I won’t give it all away. Call it a microcosm of growing up, maybe. Weird and wonderful.

Least favorite: Hands down, ‘Pretty mouth and green my eyes.’ Suffice to say it leaves me feeling let down and a little cheated. Although it must also be said that being my least favorite of this bunch isn’t saying much.

Favorite character: Seymour, Boo Boo, and the Chief… I think what makes Salinger’s writing about children so poignant is that he treats them like they are actually people, and that’s what I like about his best characters, too.

Least favorite: It’s a tie between that jerk Muriel (I know you liked her, Seymour, but she wasn’t good enough for you) and Teddy’s parents (also enormous jerks). We’d all have been better off without them.

Recommended for: people who liked Catcher in the Rye, people who like children, people who want to like short stories and so far just don’t, people who live in rainy places.

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

"Life is a gift horse in my opinion"--Teddy

While not a novel but instead a collection of short stories I would like to contend that, combined with Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roofbeams Carpenters and Seymour the combination of stories about the Glass family, the family of geniuses, constitute a novel. Nine Stories is simply the best introduction to these compilations.

Many of these stories are centered around interactions between adults and children and how those interactions help the adults see something in themselves--sometimes positive, sometimes negative. The adults are either flawed and insecure (check) or those other people, you know, the ones you like to make fun of. The kids are, for the most part, some kind of uber-intelligent, precocious and yet fragile combination and only those flawed but sensitive adults can really communicate with them.
The physical and psychological affects of war also lay heavily on many of these individuals.

Readability: Personally, I'm a big fan of of the dialogue in these stories (especially that of the children), the rather sly humor and the way he describes people's simple movements, "He folded the robe, first lengthwise, then in thirds. He unrolled the towel he had used over his eyes, spread it out on the sand, and then laid the folded robe on top of it. He bent over picked up the float, and secured it under his right arm. Then, with his left hand, he took Sybil's hand." Unnecessarily long description, maybe, but do I want to know that he grabbed her hand with his left hand, yes.

Enjoyability (is that a word?): All the stories are enjoyable in their own way, I like to pick it up and read the story that best fits my current mood.

Favorite quote(s):
"Twenty minutes later they were finishing their first highball in the living room and were talking in the manner peculiar, probably limited, to former college roommates"--Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut
"She put her hands and wrists further forward on the table and I remember wanting to do something about that enormous faced wristwatch she was wearing--perhaps suggest that she try wearing it around her waist"--For Esme--with Love and Squalor
"It was a long time before X could set the letter aside, let alone lift Esme's father's wristwatch out of the box. When he did finally lift it out, he saw that its crystal had been broken in transit. He wondered if the watch was otherwise undamaged, but he hadn't the courage to wind it and find out.--For Esme--with Love and Squalor
"This was the sort of question Mrs. Snell slipped into as if it were an ermine coat." --Down at the Dinghy
"Her Joke of a name aside, her general unprettiness aside, she was--in terms of permanently memorable, immoderately perceptive, small-are faces--a stunning and final girl." --Down at the Dinghy
"I'll exquisite day you, buddy, if you don't get down off that bag this minute. And I mean it."--Teddy
"Yes, sure, I love Him. But I don't love Him sentimentally. He never said anybody had to love Him sentimentally,' Teddy said. 'If I were God, I certainly wouldn't want people to love me sentimentally. It's too unreliable."--Teddy

Favorite character: Seymour mainly because of his impact in other Salinger stories, Teddy, Bo Bo (really anyone in the Glass family), Esme and her brother, Sergent X, Lionel...aaand I'm stopping before I mention every character.

Least favorite character: Muriel's mother in A Perfect Day for a Bananafish. Its a fantastic story but I just can't stand her.

Social impact: The greatest social impact of Salinger's writings seems to have come from his status as a mad man recluse for the last 40 or so years. Ooh, and that he also wrote that book Catcher in the Rye that everyone was FORCED to read in High School. I'd hate to think this would deter anyone from reading his other work, cause it's really worth a look.

Greatest impact: Be ready for some ending shockers but also some great connections between people and surprising one-liners that come out of nowhere.

Best Stories: A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, Down at the Dinghy, For Esme--with Love and Squalor, Teddy

Recommended for: Fans of rainy days, Belle and Sebastian and Wes Anderson (I stole this from someone else but...any of these characters would slip right into the Tenenbaum family...) but, you'd better not be a phony.

Overall: Sigh, I just really love this book. It's always been comforting to return to and read a story here and there over the years and I find myself mentioning things from it in everyday conversation (slightly embarrassingly). A good introduction to Salinger's short stories, but really, they're all pretty great.


Salinger had many more stories published in various magazines over time but they were never put into book form. Someday I will search out these stories, but until that day comes, here's some information on them and where they can be found.

http://www.deadcaulfields.com/UncollectedList.html http://www.deadcaulfields.com/Unpublished.html

Also, since the death of Salinger, there have been rumors of a possible treasure trove of written work hidden in his home written after he became a crazy recluse. Does it make me a bad person that I was a little excited when he died?

http://theweek.com/article/index/105708/JD_Salingers_unpublished_work_What_now

The Quiet American

Readability: Not one of those books that starts out with a bang... from the very beginning people, places, and things you've never heard of are involved, and it's a little tough to get into. Get through the first 30 pages or so though, and things start to get interesting.

Enjoyability: Liked it. A lot (this surprised me a little). Good story, great writing (doesn't use unnecessary adjectives, I appreciate that in a person). What I liked best was that the characters were like real people, people who have good qualities but are also flawed, people I felt conflicted about.

Favorite quote(s):
"We all get involved in a moment of emotion and then we cannot get out. War and Love - they have always been compared." That's deep, Mr. Greene.

Favorite character: Thomas Fowler. First let me say that by "favorite," here, I don't mean that I would want to sit and have a drink with Mr. Fowler. I sort of picture him as one of those morose old guys you'd see sitting in a corner at the pub (probably throwing dice and drinking a vermouth cassis, whatever the hell that is) who would probably be as likely as not to strike up a conversation about how much he hates England or how he'd rather die than be alone when he's old. It would not be cheerful. That said, he's definitely my favorite character in this book. Fowler is not, by outward appearance, a likeable person: he is jaded and cynical, drinks, smokes opium, and cheats on his wife. He repeatedly claims to be disengaged, impartial, and univolved, and takes pride in this. What we find throughout the book, though, is that he's anything but unengaged. Fowler turns out to be the character who is willing to see the realities of War rather than being satisfied with the "safe" official Press Conferences, and ultimately the one person who is willing to take action to support his principles. I respect that.

Least favorite character: Pyle, the quiet american himself. Just thinking about him makes me mad. Here comes this young American guy who doesn't drink and doesn't sleep around and is such a romantic and is... innocent. Fowler says "What's the good? he'll always be innocent, you can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless... Innocence is a kind of insanity." And though I respect Fowler, on this particular point I completely disagree. I think you can absolutely blame the innocent... just because Pyle happens to be bumblingly innocent doesn't mean he's not culpable for his actions, no matter the good intentions he walked in with. At one point Pyle and Fowler are standing together looking at the chaos after a bomb explodes, which Pyle had a role in creating, and he looks down at his shoes at says, 'What's that?' and Fowler goes 'Blood... haven't you ever seen it before?' I admire his control... I think I would have punched Pyle in the eye. I seriously don't like that guy.

Social impact: A commentary on colonialism, with haunting foreshadowing to the United States/Vietnam war. Interesting also that in a novel written 55 years ago featured an American who got involved in a conflict overseas that he didn't really understand which then led to some pretty negative consequences... remind you of anything?

Person I felt bad for, but who I wished would just grow a backbone already: Phuong, of course, the Vietnamese woman who lives with Fowler and then with Pyle and then with Fowler again. I just feel bad for her. Here's her country, being meddled with by all these foreign powers, and she's got this guy who kind of loves her but kind of treats her like a dishrag, and then she finally leaves him and what does he do? Well, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you, but that doesn't end well either. Kind of sad, but she doesn't put up enough fuss to really make you feel much about at all.

Recommended for: People who like the Jason Bourne books/movies but can handle a little less action, people interested in colonialism or Vietnam, Americans who can handle a little bit of criticism (I agree that this book could be considered a bit anti-American... but on the other hand, it's not really pro- any other nation or people, either).

And it begins: The Quiet American by Graham Greene

"sooner or later...one has to take sides. If one is to remain human." The Quiet American is the story of Fowler, a bitter English reporter, Pyle an idealistic American working with the 'third force' in Vietnam their friendship and competition over a Vietnamese woman and Vietnam itself.

Readability: Highly readable. The writing is brisk with plenty of dialogue (something I always enjoy) and my edition of the book was only 180 pages long. This is a one-week-in-your-spare-time type book.

Enjoyability (is that a word?): While the subject matter is a bit of a downer (what, you don't like reading about the horrible deaths of civilians in Vietnam?) I still found it a pretty enjoyable read. Course, I'm a nerd for history but even if you're not there's still a love story, mystery, thriller, espionage, and war story thrown in.

Favorite quote(s):

"Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it."

"You and your like are trying to make a war with the help of people who just aren't interested."

"In the moment of shock there is little pain; pain began about three A.M. when I began to plan the life I had still somehow to live and to remember memories in order somehow to eliminate them. Happy memories are the worst, and I tried to remember the unhappy. I was practiced. I had lived all this before."

Favorite character: Thomas Fowler. Fowler is the narrator of The Quiet American. While he certainly has his faults (self-pity, the ever common issues with women, refusal 'to get involved') but his heart is in the right place and I enjoyed his viewpoint and cynicism.

Least favorite character: Phuong--the Vietnamese woman involved with both Fowler and Pyle. It's not really her fault that she's my least favorite character, I simply had problems because we do not get to know her. She is shown simply through the lens of Fowler or Pyle and is not a well developed character of her own right. Maybe Greene wanted to maintain her level of foreign-ness, or maybe he just didn't know how to write about women, but it bothered me.

Social impact: The social impact of this book is incredible and, frankly, a bit creepy. The book was written between 1952 and 1955 during the First Indochina War in Vietnam. It takes place during the transition from French colonialism in the region to the American intervention that led to the Vietnam war. What's creepy about it is the foreshadowing that exists in it for the next two decades of American involvement in Vietnam and the death of European-style colonialism. Also, the two men serve as stand-ins for their countries. Fowler is aging colonial power that doesn't have much power anymore but who doesn't want to see idealistic, powerful and mislead America take their place because, while they may not be perfect, America has no idea what they're doing.
Apparently when this book was originally released in 1955 it was viewed as UnAmerican for its portrayal of Americans, as personified by Pyle.

Greatest impact: I keep thinking of a scene where Fowler is flying with a bomber above north Vietnam. Actually all of the scenes involving war were very well done. Also, the ending is a bit of a shocker.

Recommended for: People interested in the history of conflict in Vietnam, affects of colonialism and American policies in Asia. People who like stogy Englishmen as narrators. Kinda reminded me of a cross between Hemingway and W. Somerset Maughm. Like Hemingway but if he wrote about Asia, or something.


Overall: Great, I'll be checking out other novels by Graham Greene in the future!

Movie Adaptations: This adaptation was made in 2002. I just watched the preview and, while it looks a little corn-tastic and I feel like Brendan Fraser is pretty much never a good choice, it looks to have followed the book reasonably well. Maybe it's worth watching?

Let the Judgement Begin!

Being judgmental has to be one of my favorite past times. I mean, who doesn't enjoy feeling superior and uppity based upon your favorite movies, foods, music, mustaches or books? The problem I typically run into is while I know my opinion is the best, I can't always define why. Clearly a handlebar mustache is superior to a pencil mustache, but why? Is it thickness, attitude, bristle-factor? This is a question that can never be answered but we can attempt to define why one book is better than another. The following is a brief list of criteria. It will likely change because, lets be honest, I can't make permanent decisions on anything. If anyone out there in the labyrinth of the internet has any suggestions please, please let us know!


Readability:
Enjoyability (is that a word?):
Favorite quote(s):
Favorite character:
Least favorite character:
Social impact:
Greatest impact:
Recommended for:

Overall:

Also, we want to do some kind of review of movies adapted from these books. More to come on that...maybe...if I get around to it....

The list. The list of, we say with full confidence and conviction, the best 100 books of all time. How did this list come about, you might ask? We started by painstakingly examining many many other lists, which were one by one considered and then rejected as lacking. Some were too 20th-century, some too Western, some were missing crucial tomes that we knew in our heart of hearts HAD to be on the list, and some were just plain terrible. Having rejected every list we could find, we decided to compile our own. So this list, our list, takes a little something from each of those other best-100 lists, with a dash of our own strongly-held-opinion thrown in too. Is it the best? We think so, but… check back about 100 books from now. And without further ado, and in no particular order, the list:

1. Ulysses; James Joyce
2. Heart of Darkness; Joseph Conrad
3. East of Eden; John Steinbeck
4. 1984; George Orwell
5. Sophie’s Choice; William Styron
6. The Sheltering Sky; Paul Bowles
7. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Ken Kesey
8. At-Swim-Two-Birds; Flann O’Brien
9. A Clockwork Orange; Anthony Burgess
10. Housekeeping; Marilynne Robinson
11. Finnegan’s Wake; James Joyce
12. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; James Joyce
13. On The Road; Jack Kerouac
14. Catcher in the Rye; J.D. Salinger
15. Great Gatsby; F. Scott Fitzgerald
16. Catch-22; Joseph Heller
17. War and Peace; Leo Tolstoy
18. Anna Karenina; Leo Tolstoy
19. Slaughter-House 5; Kurt Vonnegut
20. Sometimes a Great Notion; Ken Kesey
21. All the Kings Men; Robert Penn Warren
22. Brideshead Revisted, Evelyn Waugh
23. God of Small Things; Arundhati Roy
24. Portnoy’s Complaint, Phillip Roth
25. American Pastoral, Philip Roth
26. Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
27. Brave New World; Aldous Huxley
28. Pale Fire; Vladimir Nabokov
29. Lolita; Vladimir Nabokov
30. Grapes of Wrath; John Steinbeck
31. To Kill A Mockingbird; Harper Lee
32. Sound and the Fury; William Faulkner
33. A Light in August, William Faulkner
34. A Farewell to Arms; Ernest Hemingway
35. The Sun Also Rises; Ernest Hemingway
36. Don Quixote; Miguel de Cervantes
37. Middlemarch; George Eliot
38. Moby Dick; Herman Melville
39. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
40. The Fountainhead; Ayn Rand
41. Of Human Bondage; W. Somerset Maugham
42. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
43. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
44. Invisible Man; Ralph Ellison
45. To the Lighthouse; Virginia Woolf
46. Things Fall Apart; Chinua Achebe
47. Mrs. Dalloway; Virginia Woolf
48. 100 Years of Solitude; Gabriel Garcia Lorca
49. Sons and Lovers; D.H. Lawrence
50. Rabbit, Run; John Updike
51. The Bell Jar; Sylvia Plath
52. A Tale of Two Cities; Charles Dickens
53. The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit; J.R.R. Tolkien
54. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Mark Twain
55. Dream of the Red Chamber; Tsao Hseuh Chin
56. The Yacoubian Building; Alaa Al Aswany
57. Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
58. Remembrance of Things Past; Marcel Proust
59. Jane Eyre; Charlotte Bronte
60. A Grain of Wheat, Ngugi Wa Thingo
61. The Picture of Dorian Gray; Oscar Wilde
62. Pride and Prejudice; Jane Austen
63. Crime and Punishment; Fyodor Dostoevsky
64. The Things They Carried; Tim O’Brien
65. The Death of the Heart; Elizabeth Bowen
66. Gone with the Wind; Margaret Mitchell
67. The Awakening, Kate Chopin
68. Their Eyes Were Watching God; Zora Neale Huston
69. Farenheit 451; Ray Bradbury
70. World’s Fair; E.L. Doctoro
71. Wide Sargasso Sea; Jean Rhys
72. A Passage to India; E.M. Forster
73. Kim; Rudyard Kipling
74. Lord of the Flies; William Golding
75. Portrait of a Lady; Henry James
76. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter; Carson McCullers
77. Les Miserables; Victor Hugo
78. Beloved; Toni Morrison
79. The Devil to Pay In The Backlands; Joao Guimaraes
80. The Color Purple; Alice Walker
81. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; Muriel Spark
82. Darkness at Noon; Arthur Kostler
83. The President; Miguel Angel Asturias
84. The Adventures of Augie March; Saul Bellow
85. Blindness; Jose Saramago
86. The Parade’s End; Ford Maddox Ford
87. The Lost World; H.G. Wells
88. Sister Carrie; Theodore Dreisser
89. The War of the End of the World; Mario Vargas Llosa
90. Graham Greene; The Quiet American
91. A Dance to the Music of Time; Anthony Powell
92. The Age of Innocence; Edith Wharton
93. The Naked and the Dead; Norman Mailer
94. From Here to Eternity; James Jones
95. An American Trajedy; Theodore Dreiser
96. Tropic of Cancer; Henry Miller
97. Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert
98. Nine Stories; J.D. Salinger
99. A Room With A View; E.M. Forster
100. The Day of the Locust; Nathanael West