The Eight Books I Didn't Get To

Well, I knocked off 29 of the 37. Not bad. Not what I was hoping for, but not bad. I didn't get to the following books:

1. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
2. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
3. Don Quixote by Cervantes
4. The Age of Jackson by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
5. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
6. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
7. Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
8. Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson

I'll probably get around to Bellow, Dumas, and McPherson eventually. It seems like I've been meaning to read Schlesinger for over a decade, so I think he's done for.

Other books I read when I should have been reading books on the list:

1. Quirkology by Richard Wiseman
2. I Am America (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert
3. Kill Your Idols by Jim DeRogatis, ed.
4. I Have Fun Everywhere I Go by Mike Edison
5. The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth
6. Generation Kill by Evan Wright
7. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
8. The Librarian by Larry Beinhart

So 37 books so far this year. Way behind last year's total of 53, but a good deal ahead of 2006's shameful 33 and right on par with 2005's 37.

Finished Midnight's Children Last Night

I finally finished Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie last night. I'm not sure when I'll have the review up, because it's a complicated book and I'd like to do it justice (though I'm sure I won't).

In other news, I believe I'm ending the 37 book project a little early. While I'm glad for the books I've read this year that I would have never read otherwise, it's obvious that I won't finish by the end of the year. Ok, also, I tried to start reading Robinson Crusoe yesterday and that early 18th century writing pissed me off. I've got a long list of things I want to read that have accumulated through the year and I want to have fun reading during the holidays.

Though don't despair, dear readers, as I've had a lot of fun doing this blog, so I'm going to keep it up for my other readings. (that is, of course, if any of you are still reading this blog).

So stay tuned for the review of Midnight's Children and a reflection on this project.

Getting There

Again, just let me say that Midnight's Children is a phenomenal book. But it's pretty dense and confusing at times with a large cast of characters. However, that isn't the problem...the problem is getting me to sit down and read these days. Arrrrggggh. Anywho, I'm getting close.

You would think...

You would think that you could get a lot of reading done whilst recovering from a minor surgery. Not true. Pain medicine makes me groggy and unable to concentrate.

You would think that you would be able to get a lot of reading done whilst sitting around the hospital for several days while a family member is recovering. Not true. Stress apparently damages my ability to recall anything I read. Stress apparently makes me really good at crossword puzzles though.

Reading Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

This book is pretty great, but I can't say why. The plot isn't really even developed yet, just backstory through 100 plus pages. I guess I just appreciate the writing. It's just so friggin' good. I know every writer works hard at his/her craft, but you can see the raw talent oozing out of these pages.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Frankly, the book isn't as good as I recalled. I'd say it was ok, but a little heavy-handed. But then again, it's probably good to remember that it set the stage for other "thin veneer of civilization" books.

On the face of it, Lord of the Flies is about a group of English schoolboys whose plane crashes (shot down during the war?) into a deserted island, killing all the adults. The story then moves to how the boys (early teens and younger) will survive (if at all) until they're rescued (if at all). Originally the boys all vote Ralph into a leadership position and he decides that keeping a signal fire is the most important thing. Ralph is advised by the fat and bespectacled Piggy (who is always for keeping the old order of civilization) Jack is never at ease with Ralph being the chief but accepts being the leader of the hunters. Then things start to fall apart. The hunters let the fire go out, then the hunters break off into their own group, and finally the hunters take over and descend into abject savagery.

The descent into savagery is brought on by fear of "the beast." The smaller children (littluns) believe early on that there is a beast on the island who is out to get them all. This fear begins to prey on the older boys when, in searching the island for the beast, they find, in the twilight, a dead pilot suspended in a tree by his parachute. In the darkness, he looks very much to them like a winged beast. From there the fear ramps up and Jack's hunters, after killing a sow, leave its head on a spear as an offering to the beast. Simon, an older boy aligned with Jack and Piggy, was hiding in the jungle near the clearing where the hunters spiked the pig head. While watching the flies surround the pig head, Simon slips into a hallucination where the sow's head speaks to him as the "Lord of the Flies" (Satan). The Lord of the Flies tells Simon that there is no beast, but rather the beast (the Lord of the Flies) is within each of the boys; that fear and savagery is the beast. Simon is unable to tell this to the boys, as Jack's tribe is in a ritualistic dancing frenzy when Simon arrives and they mistake him for the beast.

So in all, the book tells that man, left to himself, will fall back to primitivism. Order and government are fragile (symbolized by the conch shell used by Ralph to maintain order in meetings) and that the seeds of evil are within all of us.

The book reminded me, in some ways, of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian which I read earlier this year. However, McCarthy is a much better writer than Golding. Lord of the Flies does make some important points, but it seems that it is indeed a book better read by an adolescent.

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

I really should have finished this novel a lot sooner than I did. I just didn't have much time to sit down and read over the last few weeks. Rabbit, Run by John Updike is a compelling read, a real page-turner, which is odd for a book that is largely a character study.

Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is a young man in his mid-20s with a pregnant wife and a 2 year-old child. Harry was a high school basketball star and he doesn't adjust well from moving from the spotlight of the basketball court to being an average guy leading an average life. Rabbit feels trapped in his life and decides, rather on the spur of the moment, to leave his rapidly-turning-alcoholic wife. He has a 3 month affair with a non-classic prostitute, then returns to his wife on the night she's giving birth to their daughter. In the interim, we learn of the difficulties of the families Rabbit has run away from. After a short time at home, Rabbit leaves again after his wife (fairly fresh from giving birth) won't have sex with him. This sends her into an amazingly written alcoholic fog the next day...and the worst happens. Rabbit rejoins the family, and yet runs again at the end of the novel...though we have no idea of to where.

I now understand why John Updike can be such a jerk when he's writing book reviews. He's got the chops to back it up. It ain't braggin' if you're this good. I wish James Joyce would have lived long enough to read this book. It shows that you can do stream of consciousness-esque writing for short periods without it reading like a gimmick. Janice Springer's alcohol-fueled day after Harry's second leaving...you're in her head. Updike does an amazing job of making you feel some sort of empathy for all of the characters in the book...and some distaste for many of them too. It's a foggy world and people are trying to get by. They may not be doing their best (many of them seem to be driven by lust), but you understand some of why they feel the way they do. Rabbit, Run is a heart-breaking and amazing book about the drudgery and ordinariness middle-class life and how one person's rash actions can have a ripple effect on many other lives.