Commodore Hornblower by C.S. Forester

It is true talent that can write the same story over and over again, retaining the essentials, and yet making it all seem completely different. Every time I open a Hornblower book, I know Horatio is going to triumph, I know he is going to distinguish himself, and I know he is going to make it home, and yet the novel is still captivating from start to finish.

Commodore Hornblower followed this wildly successful formula as Horatio traveled to Russia and dined with the Czar, successfully held off French advances in the Baltic, and caught typhus and survived. An extraordinary story, but fun nonetheless.

I think it is Forester's amazing grasp of, if I can say this without sounding pretentious, the human condition, that makes the books so enjoyable. The illustrious adventure is secondary. If the stories consisted merely of Horatio going about his daily life in England, they would be just as enthralling.

The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain

Mark Twain was rather anatagonistic towards religion, and, according to the afterword of this book, he regarded the story of Adam and Eve as merely a fable. While he took some liberties with the story, he was very compassionate to the couple, although he did not have much love for the God who made them.

In The Diaries, Adam and Eve never have any direct contact with their creator. They are basically left to fend for themselves. Twain postulates that because they had no knowledge of good and evil, they could not know that it was evil to eat of the tree, and so they are not to blame for doing so. Herein lies his error. They might not have known good and evil, but certainly they had knowledge of obedience. God told Adam to name the animals, and he promptly did so. They had knowledge of death, for Eve did not eat of the tree until the serpent told her she would not die. In this way, they also had knowledge of consequences. All they were lacking, really, was this knowledge of good and evil, the only one that could hurt them. For once they knew what it was to do wrong, they would.

On another note, the afterword said that much of the story was a picture of Twain's marriage, and of how much he loved his wife. I found that satisfying. Many authors had horrible, or non-existent, relationships. It is pleasant to know Twain had a wonderful marriage, with kids, and an excellent literary career

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

I spent two weeks on Walden Pond, figuratively, but it felt like I spent two years, literally, as Thoreau did. It wasn't a bad time, though. In fact, it was quite enlightening. It is not often a book actually alters the manner in which I think. It is also not often I consider a classic novel worthy of the adulation it is showered with by the academic who wrote the introduction. Walden is an exceptional book.

Thoreau employs a loose, meandering, but ultimately cohesive style. He expounds upon all the elements the time he spent on Walden Pond, essentially just living. He proved his assertion that one could easily provide for himself through subsistence farming and living simply. He was exceedingly quotable: "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity!" Or, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." When he said he could be satisfied anywhere as long as he had his thoughts, I read in awe.

I appreciated Thoreau's perspective immeasurably. I find applications for it everywhere I go. Driving down the 91 recently, I marveled at the sheer number of people in southern California, and I thought of how few take the time to immerse themselves in nature for a few hours. Goodness knows I don't do so enough, and I do it far more often than most.

Thoreau's thoughts pervaded mine as I toured some acquaintances' new tract home. It was profane, truly. The house was so large, and yet not big enough. There was never a better example of Thoreau's house-as-a-prison concept. It was all so generic. The same house was repeated for miles, squeezed immorally close together. The neighbors' windows faced each other directly; the builders had not even the courtesy to stagger them. From the second story, one could see all of the surrounding yards, and the people in them. There was a convenient ledge situated underneath the windows, ostensibly to assist one when one desired to jump off.

When my acquaintances suggested we buy the house for sale down the street, I almost choked. The thought of exchanging our twenty undeveloped acreas for a concrete box with barely a patch of sky visible between towering masses of manufactured nothingness...

Captain Horatio Hornblower by C.S. Forester

One's view of the Hornblower books only improves as one becomes more acquainted with them. Horatio just gets better and better. Originally published in three separate stories, Captain Horatio Hornblower's thread of continuity is Lady Barbara.

In "Beat to Quarters," Hornblower is forced to take Lady Barbara aboard because of fever in Panama. The two become enamoured with each other, but, pity of pities, Hornblower is married. Barbara gets married herself in "Ship of the Line." At sea, a defeated Hornblower surrenders to the French, and is taken prisoner.

A commentary I once read compared Horatio to Sherlock Holmes in terms of their audiences' adulation, but I've found another similarity. In the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, many cases illuminate the detective's powers of reasoning despite his occasional inability to solve the mystery or save his client. Likewise, Horatio's naval defeat illustrates his indefatigable resolve and ingenuity.

In "Flying Colours," Horatio escapes from French captivity and manages to return to England by commandeering a prize ship. Once home, he finds Maria dead of childbirth, and Barbara a naval widow caring for his infant. Things resolve themselves serendipitously.

I found Forester's habit of epithet intriguing. It was a delightful way to characterize characters. Maria was often "cloying" with her affections; Horatio was continually plagued with his "cross-grainedness." Great, great stuff.

Hornblower During the Crisis by C.S. Forester

It is a credit to Forester that he was able to skillfully resume a tone he had achieved years before. The overt allusions Forester employs are really cute. I love it when he does that. Hornblower During the Crisis, merely a fragment, was the last product of Forester's pen before his death. Chronologically, it comes between Hotspur and Atropos, and the continuity is commendable.

This unfinished novel is actually appended by two short stories, "Hornblower's Temptation" and "The Last Encounter." The first involves Horatio defusing a potentially explosive situation. He has to carry out the execution of an Irish rebel, a job he abhors, sensitive, thoughtful, anachronistic protagonist that he is. After examining the man's belongings he finds incriminating papers and money meant for the Irish dissenters. Horatio nobly decides to throw it all overboard, preventing further strife with Ireland.

The second story visits Horatio years after the wars. It serves as an overarching conclusion to the Hornblower saga. It presents the hero as a satisfied man, enjoying the end of a long and successful life. He has come to terms with just about everything there is to come to terms with. He appreciates his wife for being a woman, and not a goddess. He has adjusted to prosperity, and has only fleeting doubts about its permanency. he even looks at himself with a bit of humor.

I've always found it just a bit creepy to read the last words of a dead man, but, I suppose, most writing is that of now-dead men. I guess that makes reading in general really creepy. No, I know. Everyone dies eventually. Besides, all literature was written when the authors were alive. Anyways.

I truly enjoyed the Hornblower books. They were consummate adventure-romance with a complex, endearing, flawed, forthright protagonist. Forester crafted a masterpiece of a series. Horatio Hornblower is one of the greatest literary characters it has ever been my pleasure to know. I'm not with Hemingway on a lot of things, but I am totally behind him with this: "I recommend Forester to everyone I know."

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

The mysterious girl featured in Jan Vermeer's famous painting is given a story of her own. The author weaves a narrative around her while illuminating Holland circa 1660, and she embellishes upon the artist, imbuing him with an artfully piquing personality.

Griet, the eponymous girl, must find employment, for her father was blinded in an accident and can no longer support the family. She becomes a maid in Vermeer's household, and she catches the eyes of both him and his patron. She is entranced with the process of painting, and soon she is a subject of Vermeer's muse. But the portrait of her causes strife, and so she is dismissed. Ten years later, she is married, with children, and Vermeer's death leaves her with the pearl earrings central to the composition, tokens of the artist's regard for her.

Altogether, it was a finely wrought book. The prose was delicately modern, but not obviously so. The plot was subtle, but substantial enough to sustain this reader. The romance between Griet and her husband was forced and almost non-existent, and the relationship between the artist and his subject was tension-filled, but it skirted illicitness. Mostly, Griet just stood in awe of Vermeer and his genius. The book was a rather tactful portrait of the artist and his portrait.

A post-script on a related subject: the movie with Colin Firth was excellent. One of the less purposeful movies I've seen, but definitely one of the most beautiful. It was like much art is- perhaps devoid of any meaningful purpose, but certainly overflowing with aesthetic merit.

The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

The Jane Austen Book Club was The Eyre Affair all over again. It is so gimmicky and preposterous to use classic literature as a ploy to lure readers in. Don't these authors have any original ideas? Do they have to steal from the more talented and worthy?

Fowler follows a bunch of women and a man as they read through all six Austen novels and discuss them. Many ridiculous soap opera-like events ensue. Many characters' childhoods are analyzed, revealing the roots of their neuroses. One is a token lesbian, another is a token crazy old lady, another a young Madame Bovary. The man is interesting, but he seems to be an idealized rendering, one of those woman-author fantasies.

Worst of all, the characters are as flat as the pages they exist on. Fowler is far too fascinated with her creations. They're all so creative, and witty, and destined for a super-sweet happy ending. In other words, as far from real life as one can get.

In some peculiar attempt to update Austen, all Fowler achieves is a liberal fantasyworld with little basis in the literature it uses for publicity. As if Austen needed to be updated in the first place! Her stuff is superb, all of it gorgeously crafted portraits of her society and time. She wrote what she knew, and her success is unsurpassed. Moreover, the satisfaction found in reading her novels comes not only in the masterful writing, but in the propriety of the society itself. The permissive relativistic ideal of Fowler's is not romantic in the slightest. Her attempt to evoke Austen's fantastic prose falls flatly.

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

As if I did not get enough of Kerouac in On the Road, I embarked on this virtually identical account. Well, not identical in content, but identical in conclusiveness. Kerouac espouses a sort of Buddhism in which one prays constantly without knowing to whom, one meditates and writes poetry and tries to be kind to all, and one continually keeps in mind the fact that everything is nothing, that no one is anything, that all of existence is just part of the Void. One also drinks and sleeps around and has orgies whenever one feels like it.

As far as I can tell, Kerouac bases some of his philosophy on ancient Buddhist writing, but much of it comes from within him, as he fancies himself a sort of god. I do not understand how one can form an entire belief system from his own line of reasoning, for as limited beings humans are intrinsically faulty. And while Kerouac's character reads from the Bible and has happy feelings toward Jesus, his friend and mentor derides Christianity and mocks a "Dharma Bum" who turned Christian in his last days.

Frankly, I cannot comprehend the anatagonism toward Christianity. Perhaps it is the moral restraint. No more orgies, don't you know. But intellectually, these "bums" should have no qualms. If one is willing to accept the authority of ancient manuscripts as truth, the Bible is certainly more reliable and verifiable. And philosophically, it is beautiful. "To the pure, all things are pure." (Titus 1:15) I could easily imagine Kerouac writing something like that. He could retain his esoteric poetry and adhere to the true incident of God reaching down to man. The Gospel is, unequivocally, more intellectually honest than "everything is nothing."

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

A Room With a View was an altogether fascinatingly and tersely written book. Lucy Honeychurch visits Italy with her spinster cousin, Miss Bartlett. Lucy is surreptitiously kissed by a passionate, unconventional, handsome young man, but their relationship ends when she leaves the country. She meets up with a more conventional acquaintance and becomes engaged to him back in England. She is kissed by the first man again and the experience causes her to break off her engagement.

She eventually marries her primary love, but before she commits to him, she discovers who she is and what she wants in life. Her dilemma was such: should she marry Cecil, a well-to-do traditionalist with stifling views toward women, or should she choose George, the middle-class paradoxical non-conformist with more liberal outlooks on a woman's place in society? Forster puts it excellently: "It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, 'She loves young [George] Emerson.' A reader in Lucy's place would not find it obvious. Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome 'nerves' or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the phrases should have been reversed?" (Chapter 14: How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely)

Lucy, in fact, comes very near to emulating Miss Bartlett's spinsterhood. Ironically, thought, it is Miss Bartlett who essentially saves her from this fate.

I caught an allusion and felt wonderfully intelligent about it. "...Nothing in his love became him like the leaving of it." (Chapter 17: Lying to Cecil) A Macbeth line if I ever heard one. There were myriad references to subjects canvassed in my Art History class, which also made me feel smart. That's always fun, reading a book that flatters one's intellect.

Hornblower and the Hotspur by C.S. Forester

Horatio Hornblower is one of the few literary characters who do as well cinematically as they do textually. The story reads much more enjoyably through the eyes of Horatio than it does through the eyes of Lieutenant Bush, as in Lieutenant Hornblower. Forester's psychological analysis is superb. He narrates Horatio's thoughts and reactions as if he is thinking them, and it makes a beautiful companion to the story action.

Horatio's dutiful, unequal marriage is skillfully wrought, lending tension, conflict, and imperfection to an otherwise charmed naval life. It makes for a fascinatingly original plot point, as the heroic protagonist is more often destined for blissful, happily-ever-after relationships, than something so unsatisfying to both the reader and the character.

Horatio's actions and reactions in the light of battle are sympathetically and compassionately portrayed. He wavers over decisions that ultimately lead to the deaths of his compatriots, though they might be in his country's best interests. He scorns praise and adulation, believing his fears and uncertainties discredit his heroics. He is unceasingly unsure of himself.

It all makes for a riveting story. A self-conscious hero constantly facing death, preoccupied with both his intrinsic and domestic inadequacies, ashamed to promote himself to further his career, despite his overt merits- that is Horatio Hornblower.

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

A debonair poetic genius loves a woman but refuses to court her because of his insecurity over his nose. Ingenious storyline, where have you been all my life?

Cyrano de Bergerac is an excellent work overall. It is ridiculous to the point of hilarity. Sadly though, the end is much like Vanity Fair's, but without the final marriage. Cyrano should have gotten a happy ending. The story was really going that way.

I appreciated the well-timed poetic forays, especially Cyrano's detailed list of insults about his nose, and his fencing ballad ("Wait! Let me choose my rhymes."). The romantic tension was palpable. The sacrifice-in-the-name-of-love thing was noble, but Cyrano would have done better by his love if he had attempted to woo her himself. Then she would not have had to grieve for fifteen years before learning she had even more to grieve over- the fact that she didn't have to have grieved.

Nevertheless, the humor was aptly conveyed, even through the sterilization of translation, and the starkly stoic form of a play. Truly delightful.

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

A man goes undercover to infiltrate a dangerous group of anarchists in Europe, but he soon discovers the men he is supposed to expose are undercover too, and even the evil mastermind is not an anarchist. The story ends with a sumptuous banquet at the supposedly evil guy's house, and then the main character loses consciousness and finds himself out walking, where he was at the beginning.

I can make a few connections, but I fear the deeper meaning of the work is above me. I do not understand why Chesterton felt the need to rail against the anarchy of the rich and powerful. Since when are the aristocracy anarchists? Maybe they were then. I have no way of knowing. I think the serial revealing of the true identities of the alleged members of the anarchal society symbolizes the fact that these rich revolutionaries believed all their associates thought as they did, but really did not. I'm not sure that last sentence makes sense. I'm not sure this entire book made sense.

I just do not know what Chesterton was trying to say with this, but I enjoyed his prose nonetheless. He has been compared to C.S. Lewis, and I see similarities, especially in his quotability. The concept of the intellectual anarchists was interesting, if nothing else. I don't think there are many people who want to destroy just for the sake of destruction, nor do I think there are lots who consider all forms of government a direct threat to their well-being. I've found that the atheism linked to the anarchists here is usually paired with a political outlook that is liberal to the point of Communism.

The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

As far as I can tell, much of literature in general chronicles man's search for the meaning of life. The Razor's Edge does precisely that. The narrator follows a young man over a period of ten years, and watches him as the latter seeks purpose and meaning and truth. That young man asks all the right questions and he seems to be looking for the right answers, but his conclusions are woefully inconclusive.

Summarily, Larry, the young man, has an insatiable desire to read and discover and learn. He travels across Europe and devours all the philosophies he can. His time in a monastery is disappointing, for he has questions that the monks cannot answer. He wrestles with the ubiquitous problem of pain and whether man is actually at fault for the depravity manifest within him.

From there, Larry travels to India and ultimately falls in with the mystic Hinduism there. He mumbles some jargon about connecting with the "reality of the Absolute" or some such nonsense, and that is it. Apparently the world is infinite and we have all been reincarnated infinite times and will keep on being reincarnated until we have reached a state of transcendence. The transcendence is the ultimate reality, and it is possible to reach this place while alive through meditation and whatnot.

What is so frustrating about it all is the utter lack of concrete evidence. There is nothing trustworthy on which to base Larry's philosophy, and there is no rational way to prove it. The entire theory is merely the mumblings of a Hindu mystic with no credentials to speak of. Why choose this worldview over any other? Because of some feelings one has when meditating, and a dream one has about one's "previous lives"? The book was entirely unsatisfactory, and pathetically irrational.

Frankenstein by Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley

Let me just say that this book was utterly unlike anything I could have imagined it to be. Primarily, it was terribly unfrightening, and surprisingly long-winded. Moreover, the writing was not nearly of the caliber I've come to expect from revered 19th-century writers. And ultimately, Shelley's insight into human nature is uninspired and minimal.

The most intriguing part of Frankenstein was a soliloquizing moment in which narrator Robert Walton laments over his lack of peers and desperately desires a companion with whom he can share his intellectual interests. My heart went out to him. Goodness knows I've felt that way many times myself. But the book, of course, was written by a woman, and I suppose there is something decidedly effeminate about all that.

There was also an excellent minor character whom Shelley had the gall to kill off. Henry Clerval was this paramount literary type who gallivanted across Europe "having the best time" (credit Mr. Herold, the local high school art teacher, whom I fear I will be quoting for the rest of my life). The book should have been about Clerval. He was compassionate, devoted, adventurous, and well-read. Come to think of it, he was another obviously feminine creation. Let me take this opportunity to rehash my antipathy for novels written by women from a male perspective. The flagrant audacity involved in such an undertaking is incomprehensible.

The bulk of the book was sordid and verbose, lurid and vague. Shelley's argument for the inherent innocence of the human race was disappointing and unconvincing. Horror stories are a baser form of literature in the first place, and second-rate ones are that much worse. Shelley had a moderately good premise, and that accounts for the longevity of her book. She didn't run with the myriad possibilites the story was capable of, but others did.

Candide by Voltaire

Voltaire was fairly witty for a crazy French atheistic ranter. Candide was a satire attacking the common understanding of Gottfried Leibniz's assertion that "everything is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds." It is a rather ridiculous statement in the first place, and naturally lends itself to all sorts of mocking. The story follows characters as all kinds of bad things happen to them, effectually proving the premise untrue.

Of course, ours is not, in fact, "the best of all possible worlds," but instead a horrible, twisted, depraved world augmented by billions of people's free wills wreaking what havoc they must when so many are acting outside of perfection. Truly, just a tiny deviation from a life of continually flawless behavior would have far-reaching consequences, and would permanently mar an otherwise perfect world. In actuality, we have innumerable deviations from perfection every moment, and this world is hopelessly removed from "the best."

And that is just the way it is. Candide is an exceedingly diverting read with few, if any, biblical indiscretions to speak of. I liked it.

Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson

Ah yes, David Balfour. Happily cliched, morally uplifting adventure-romance hero. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. I cannot say enough how wonderful a romantic action-adventure novel set in Scotland, with a happy ending, is. Literature is seriously lacking in this department. Thankfully, Stevenson has taken up some of the slack. After wandering the Scottish moors on Alan Breck's heels in Kidnapped, our protagonist, the young, noble, forthright David Balfour, moves through society and comes into his own in Catriona, the sequel.

There is a delightful portion of the story in which David is forced to house a young woman, Catriona of course, in his lodgings, for her father had essentially abandoned her abroad. He loves her and eventually marries her, and it's great. Let me tell you, there is nothing more romantic than repressed feelings not acted upon until the proper time. After all, that was the driving force behind Jane Eyre and Austen's novels, and there is nothing better than those.

But back to Catriona. So there is some adventure and sufficient peril for the protagonist. But most of all, there is a happy ending. I cannot help it. That reassurance that everything turns out all right in the end- I need it. Otherwise, I begin to feel very vulnerable and threatened. I know, I know. All that sad, inconclusive, depressing stuff has a prominent place in the canon of classic literature and is probably more lofty and thought-provoking and whatnot. I just suppose I am as of yet unable to relinquish my juvenile fears and inhibitions.

The Human Comedy by William Saroyan

I was talking to a guy at school, and he mentioned The Human Comedy as his favorite book of all time, so I decided to check it out. Honestly, though, I was not completely impressed. It was a sweet book, but it was a tad simplistic. The simplicity wasn't entirely a detractor, for it rendered the book devoid of any objectionable content, but I think its view of the world was somehow too small to present an accurate depiction of universal truths.

For The Human Comedy tried very hard to be a philosophical book. Characters spontaneously recite speeches of truisms, spouting that's-the-way-life-is phrases. The truisms don't seem to be particularly true, though. The prevailing theme of the book is a universalizing one that reiterates a mantra of brotherhood and fraternity among all men, taking the concept so far as "we all are everyone else." It's a slightly relative view, and it transfers the blame of wrongdoers indeterminably to the next person and the next, until no one is to blame for anything. And the plot involves an implicit trust between strangers that feels fairly rash.

Nevertheless, I could appreciate the characters. My favorite was perhaps Mr. Spangler, a telegram man whose policy of polite, universal kindness saves him, and a few others, from harm. Others were enjoyable as well- the older brother in the army, the middle brother supporting the family and learning how life is, the pleasant sister, and the youngest brother who is discovering joy as it comes to him. The mother did a lot of philosophizing (it reminded me, for some reason, of that scene in The Importance of Being Earnest in which Algy and Jack banter about the former's invented truism), and she talked to her dead husband, so I did not like her as much.

I am not sure why this book was that guy's favorite. Nothing really made it stand out; nothing in it seemed particularly extraordinary. Who knows.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffery Chaucer

I had to go with a thoroughly modernized translation because the original language was Middle English, and I didn't particularly feel like torturing myself. I mean, the untouched version would be worse than Shakespeare by, like, hundreds of years. So, I got the gist of the stories, even if I didn't get the flavor and feel of Chaucer's language.

This means, of course, that I can really only evaluate the stories on their narrative merit. Many could only be described as bawdy, the dirty jokes of the Middle Ages, and not stuff one would neccessarily summarize out loud. Others were cute and romantic, and some were satires. I enjoyed this glimpse into medieval life. It is not often I read a book actually written in the time it speaks of, especially this far back in history. It is almost like learning history firsthand, from someone who was actually there. A writer's material is so personal that it becomes a sort of conversation with the reader. It was quite pleasant to hear voice from such a distant time, even if the sound might have been distorted through the translation.

One point that struck me when reading the tales was that nothing has truly changed. People, no matter their location in time, are still people. They still have the same sense of humor (imagine- a joke almost one thousand years old, is still funny), there is still infidelity and idolatry, girls are still embarrassing flirts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Fascinating stuff.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury is rather dependable. Whenever I pick up a book of his, I know I'll get a beautiful, thoughtful, sci-fi commentary on society. I selected Something Wicked This Way Comes for its allusory title towards Macbeth, the play I had just finished in AP Lit and Comp. I was curious as to how it would all fit together.

I'll admit I probably do not grasp the full import of the allusion, but I think I have part of it. Within Macbeth, this line precedes the entrance of the hero-turned-villain. Bradbury's book also featured a sort of good-turned-bad element in the carnival that comes to town. Two young boys are excited by the impending carnival, but are soon mystified by the creepy, occultist characters it brings with it. The boys discover the sadistic aims of the man in charge of it all, and eventually they triumph over him. People in this novel die or disappear mysteriously, just like in Macbeth.

The book features a Tuck Everlasting-like convention, and so philosophizes nicely over the ramifications of living forever.

I particularly enjoyed a line by one of the boys' fathers. "God, how we get our fingers in each other's clay. That's friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of the other." I thought it was beautiful imagery. That father was an excellent character. He was a library janitor who had read most of the books he swept around. What an incredible picture.

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

The Power and the Glory was essentially Death Comes for the Archbishop without the cool title. A priest in Mexico wanders around the various parishes before dying. He feels guilty because he fathered a child, and because he is a drunkard. He is shot to death in the end because the Mexicans are purging the country of Catholicism, an effort that was obviously not successful.

A minor character, a precocious preteen girl, had some real potential, but she was merely mentioned in passing. The rest of the book was sordid and tepid. Sinful priests are a dime a dozen- read the newspaper. Strangely, the author supports Catholicism in the conclusion. The whole book deprecated the religion, exposing all the corruption and hypocrisy inherent in the church. And yet, the sight of the priest at the end invokes piety and deference in a previously jaded, indifferent boy. No comprendo.

Perhaps it was all to say that Catholicism is mysterious and nonsensical, but still the true religion. I don't know. The case was not made for me.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary was actually a fairly timely read. I was perusing an article online that presented the concept of "female pornography," pornography literally being that which fosters unrealistic expectations in the opposite sex. For men, that manifests itself physically, while for women the fantasy comes in the realm of the emotional. Trashy romance novels and second-rate chick flicks cultivate the concept of the flawless tall-dark-and-handsome knight-in-shining-armor, sonnet-spouting and continually pledging his undying love. Obviously, this can have damaging effects on women's relationships with, and expectations of, men.

Madame Bovary is a case in point. She grows up in a convent, filling her mind with these very fantasies derived from novels and such. When she eventually marries, she is disappointed. Why doesn't her husband love her with that intangible passion of her books? Why doesn't he constantly romance her? How could she have so unluckily united herself with such a dull, unfeeling man?

In search of sexual fulfillment, therefore, Madame Bovary commences upon an affair. Her husband is completely unaware. The affair lasts for some time, but eventually her paramour jilts her. So, she arranges another affair, one she is sure will be more satisfying than the last. But with this second man she soon falls into a comfortable and not particularly romantic routine, and so Madame begins dreaming of yet another man, a real romantic. But she amasses some serious debt and commits suicide before she can alight upon another tryst.

Madame Bovary's unrealistic expectations ruined many, many lives. Her eternally forbearing husband adored her despite her innumerable caprices, and he succumbed to grief after her death. Her daughter, whom she never showed affection towards, was sent to a workhouse upon the successive deaths of her parents. And Madame's own life, of course, was destroyed by her passions. The novel was a graphic illustration of the damaging effects of irrational fantasizing.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

A kid I worked with at summer camp had a copy in his cabin of just about everything Kerouac ever wrote, and my art teacher rambled on and on about how revolutionary On the Road was, so I figured to be considered educated, I had to read it.

I am not entirely sure what my final verdict on this book should be. From what I can tell, it was just the typical quasi-philosophical, drinking-smoking-sleeping-around searching for the meaning of life but never doing anything productive, let alone finding answers for the questions everyone asks, sort of novel. Pointless, in other words.

I think I can see what appealed so much to that kid at camp, though. Hitchiking repeatedly across the country, meeting scads of eccentric people, exploring the world, doing whatever whenever, would all be quite attractive to a teenaged boy, I think. But not to me. I would react similarly to the women in the book. They were more apt to settle down and stay in one place after a while. On the Road was an interesting social experiment, but ultimately a faulty one. The nomadic Buddhist lifestyle doesn't really answer anything.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God was a typical woman-released-from-the-chains-of-man, chronicle of burgeoning sexuality sort of thing. How sad that there actually is that kind of literary category. Janie is a black woman in the South who marries three times before finding a husband she likes. Unfortunately, he gets bit by a rabid dog and tries to kill her, so she has to kill him self-defense. Nice.

I do not find infidelity and social defiance laudable. I guess I have no soul, but I did not like this book.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

I would never willingly pick up Hemingway after reading The Old Man and the Sea, but The Sun Also Rises was assigned literature in school. Jake Barnes and his expatriate friends wander across Europe, disconnected and disenchanted, dissatisfied with their lives and their relationships. They end up in Pamplona to witness the running of the bulls. Jake does not hook up with the girl he likes. The end.

Hemingway just seems frustrated and apathetic. He was so troubled, and his literature reflects that. I can't read him and enjoy it. It is just not going to happen. Everyone drinks, smokes, and sleeps around. Nobody is ever satisfied. The prose rambles meaninglessly for pages and pages. He never gets anywhere. It leaves me frustrated! I do not see how he had any special insight into the human condition. He was so lost.

Daisy Miller by Henry James

Let me tell you a quick story. I was working at a summer camp, and just as I was sitting down to lunch, my cell phone rang. It was my mom, calling to inform me that I would not be able to return to my charter school because apparently I had amassed too many credits and should have graduated the previous June. School started in two weeks. Unwilling to graduate fully two years early, I assured my mom I would go to the local high school and finish my senior year there.

Well, I signed up a week before the first day of school for two AP English classes, which I could do because I'd never taken them before. I had five books to read, a college to visit, a play to see and seven essays to write. Desirous to see out my camp job to the end, I dutifully set to work during my breaks. A few days later, I broke my ankle.

When school started, I was on crutches, but I had completed every single summer assignment. Besides Daisy Miller, I had read Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Sun Also Rises, The Crucible, and Brave New World for the second time.

All this is to say I hated Daisy Miller. Its only redeeming feature was its brevity- short and sweet. Well, not particularly sweet, but certainly short. Daisy is a flirt, society does not approve of her, her imprudence gets the better of her, and she dies. How sad. My tears are palpable. Really.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Oh, McCarthyism. Because it has no bearing on me, I absolutely do not care about any of it. Horrible as it may sound, this is true. So blacklist me.

The Crucible was not as bad as Death of a Salesman, but it was still Arthur Miller. Obviously a product of his partially impoverished upbringing, Miller's politics were ridiculously leftist, and therefore irrational. People should not have to rely on the government to take care of them. Freedom means being able to do that for oneself. Why don't people see that?

In the play, Puritan girl Abigail sleeps with otherwise law-abiding John Proctor. In an effort to throw attention from herself, Abigail accuses Proctor of dealings with the devil, and soon the entire countryside is in hysterics over supposedly satanic happenings. Lots of Puritans are hanged under suspicion of occult loyalties. Abigail gets off scot-free. The end.

McCarthy was a terribly misguided man and he wreaked havoc on quite a few individuals' reputations with his alarmist legislative tactics in a manner similar to that of the rabidly self-righteous Puritan authorities. Thank you, Miller, for attempting to exculpate yourself with this play that makes that connection. Your politics were bad, but that does not justify McCarthy's campaign against you. The political sphere is so interwoven with ambition and emotion, that we may never have a national platform for rational discourse, and so literature may be one of the few arenas in which such a conversation can occur.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Ah, Jane Austen. A breath of fresh air in a stifling, polluted literary world. I have to hand it to her this time. She really made me think that maybe, just maybe, the female protagonist would not marry the male protagonist she was obviously destined for. Of course, she does end up with him in the end, but there was real drama in between there.

Mansfield Park was a very nice book altogether. Fanny is the main girl, quiet and meek, mistreated and pitiable. She holds fast to her convictions, though, and by the conclusion she is loved and admired. Austen is fairly diverse, for all the similarities her books have. Each of her novels seem to involve a slightly different facet of early 19th-century British middle-to-upper-class daily life. I applaud her for that.

Truly, the comforts in reading a Jane Austen novel are innumerable. There is always just enough predictability, coupled with some unexpected turns, to delight and reassure the reader. I love Austen. Once you get to know her, you find she is unparalleled.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

I am not an ardent enthusiast of science fiction, but I can usually appreciate the older stuff. Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Ray Bradbury can all be fun little excursions. The Martian Chronicles are an excellent example of such. Bradbury has an incredible imagination. His work is not merely answering, "What if there were little green men?" Rather, he is much more conceptual. He has things to say about human nature, and "life, the universe, and everything."

The Chronicles feature various Earthlings' experiences with the Red Planet. Some stories are connected, some are years apart from each other. Each is profound in its own way. Particularly memorable was a passage detailing the perfection of the Martian religion. Bradbury explains they found the perfect blend of nature and the supernatural, something lacking in the Earth religions. Incidentally, I was just reading an essay of C.S. Lewis' asserting that Christianity does just that.

I was also captivated with the image of a character named Spender. An astronaut on one of the first expeditions to Mars, he is filled with reverence for the planet upon landing and disgusted by the irreverent revelries of his fellow travelers. He runs away and spends time studying the ruins of the Martian culture. He is struck by the profundity of their philosophy. He hatches a plan to create an intellectual utopia on Mars, eliminating any who would spoil his vision, but he himself is killed before he can execute his scheme.

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

Good old Dashiell Hammett- beautifully laconic, concise, and predictably unpredictable. There is something to be said for short, well-written books.

The Thin Man is just a detective-mystery deal, but it was quite enjoyable. The characters were fun, the protagonist witty and crazy. The husband-wife relationship was fascinating. She would go out with other men, he would be found physically comforting other women, and yet there was no question of their fidelity and trust in one another.

Hammett's people are so real. It is almost as if he created them and then just let them run around, doing what they do, weaving this intricate story. I love that he was actually a detective himself. It is a genuine case of writing what one knows.

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

I am so glad I finished Tom Jones. The novel was Vanity Fair-long. It was basically the story of an illegitimately-born Tom Jones, a chronicle of all the adventures and hardships he encounters before he discovers he is actually the son of a rich man and therefore heir to a considerable fortune. Quite convenient.

Of course, there are romantic elements, but they are surprisingly explicit for 18th-century England. Jones sleeps with three different women, but, tellingly, never the heroine. At least, not until they get married at the end. Though the narrative was still relatively prudish, the soap opera-like plot conventions were different from the other early British literature I've read.

Fielding was a funny guy in his own way. He actually made me laugh out loud a few times. For instance: "At length we are once more come to our hero; and, to say truth, we have been obliged to part with him so long, that, considering the condition in which we left him, I apprehend many of our readers have concluded we intended to abandon him for ever; he being at present in that situation in which prudent people usually desist from inquiring any further after their friends, lest they should be shocked by hearing such friends had hanged themselves." (Book XII, chapter III)

Or this one: "Had we been of the tragic complexion, the reader must now allow we were very nearly arrived at this period, since it would be difficult for the devil, or any of his representatives on earth, to have contrived much greater torments for poor Jones...What then remains to complete the tragedy but a murder or two and a few moral sentences!" (Book XVII, chapter I)

This book, I suppose, fully deserves the category of satire ascribed to it. Still, it was very long. It lagged especially in the middle, though it did pick up in the end. It was altogether all right, but very, very long.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

I came across The Eyre Affair online, where it was touted as a potential crossover for Jane Eyre fans. Imagine my excitement, my delight, my impatience to read this book. Then imagine my utter despondency, my disillusion, my disenchantment, when I read it and found it to be a poorly contrived fantasy with minmal Eyre-time, if you will.

The book is supposed to to be set in 1985, but it is a parallel-universe 1985 with over-the-counter cloned dodos, regular rents in the fabric of time and space on the side of the road, and a constantly shifting sense of reality with the line between fact and fiction quite blurry. Literature has an abnormal presence in this world, and some guy, apparently half-demon, has discovered a way to place fictional characters in the real world and kill them. Our main character must find a way to stop him before he murders the entire canon of classics. Blah, blah, blah.

The characters were flat, the dialogue was static and forced. The plot was choppy, the details were poorly thought out. For instance, the premise is that in this world's version of Jane Eyre, Jane never goes back to Rochester in the end. Later on, Fforde's protagonist causes the real ending to come about. I do not think Jane Eyre would have become a beloved classic without its original ending. The book is nothing without that ending. And it is a bit narcissistic to make one's character the cause of the best part of one of the best books ever.

Oh, and the typos. One "bails out;" one does not "bale out." Very, very bad. Throughout the entire book, I felt as if I could do a better job. It was an amusing concept, but the writing was so bad. I was hoping for a masterful writer who could take me back to the way I felt when I first read Charlotte Bronte's classic. But all I got was a second-rate, sub-par, disappointment.

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

I first encountered Freakonomics in a Wall Street Journal book review. It sounded quite enticing, and I was overjoyed when I discovered my roommate at camp had a copy of it. The book completely held up to my expectations, and I learned so much. If only every book were like that.

Basically, Freakonomics is a slightly random compilation of socioeconomic studies conducted by the two authors. They run the gamut from real estate to abortions, from cheating teachers to trends in baby names. I'm a bit nomenclatural, in that I love to name things, and so given names have always fascinated me. The study detailed in the book explained how names for new babies start at the top of the socioeconomic ladder and work their way down, until even the poorest parents discard them as too low-sounding. The authors presented a list of the names mothers with the most years of schooling gave their children recently- Linden, Finnegan, Emma, Maeve, Marie-Claire, Sophie, Aidan, Bennett, and Harper, to name a few. They postulated that these will be rampant amongst all income brackets and educational levels by 2015.

It is encouraging to see skills taught in school actually put to practical use. The authors have been described as being what every kid majoring in economics aspires to be. I hope a few more pop up. I can't get enough of this sort of information. All math should be like this- practical, and entertaining.

War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Aliens crash-land in England and wreak havoc on the countryside, leaving the citizens scurrying for their lives, until a common virus sabotages the aliens' immune system and obliterates them.

War of the Worlds was not incredible. The narrative was rather detached, and lacking in scope. I did not get the impression the aliens attacked anything outside of England, so it was not really a "world" war. Even though the story was told in the first person, it felt entirely impersonal. I was frustrated. The Time Machine was enjoyable, original, and thought-provoking, but War of the Worlds just seemed like a prolonged drama with a convenient little plot twist at the end.

Overall, I was quite bored with the whole thing. It took some stamina for me to get through it. Wells should have embellished the story, fleshed it out into something more substantial. As it is, it was a great concept, but a disappointing execution.

Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

Scaramouche sat on my floor for a long time before I picked it up. I contemplated taking the book back to the library a few times, but something told me to give it a try. I am actually glad I did, and that I stuck with it until the end.

The novel involves a lot of political history, and French political history at that, but I learned a lot despite the dryness. The main character, Andre-Louis, or Scaramouche as he is later called, incites some mobs to action and help to tip off the French Revolution. Then he has to flee for his life, so he takes refuge in a band of traveling actors. Unfortunately, he causes another riot, so he has to flee again, this time resurfacing as a fencing instructor. There are threads of romance, revenge, chivalry, and politics woven throughout, with enough plot twists to keep things interesting.

The characters are engaging, despite being French. I take issue with the French. I think they're success-challenged. History backs me up on this. But it was a good story nonetheless.

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

I want to write like C.S. Lewis. The Great Divorce as a whole is masterful, but Lewis' profundity continues down to the elemental aspects of his prose, the individual paragraphs and sentences. He makes an overarching point, but within the narrative he weaves independent statements and concepts that carry their own weight. Most of all, he makes me think.

The book was short, but engaging all the same. The narrator takes a trip through hell and heaven, and learns all about life after death. Lewis includes a disclaimer at the beginning stating that the story is a metaphorical fable, for no one could actually presume to know any concrete details regarding the real attributes of these places.

It is a book that needs to be read to be appreciated. Lewis has a knack for making the nonsensical make sense. And he is just so quotable: "This moment contains all moments." Beautiful.

Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Small title, small town, small book. That is about it. Our Town is a play about a New Hampshire town, and it follows a couple from childhood, to marriage, to an untimely death, while making a commentary on life in general. It was tepid, minimally insightful, and ultimately boring.

The play's main detractor was its theology. In the final act, the characters who have died are presented as existing in a sort of no-man's-land. It is said perhaps they are waiting for something eternal. But that is it. No God, no heaven or hell. The dead just sit in the cemetery, reminiscing about their lives and sadly observing the living, who are apparently walking about in a cloud of ignorance.

I really should avoid reading plays. They are so dead on the printed page.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

I was expecting a lot more than I got. Adams' humor, extolled throughout the Internet, just did not do it for me.

The problem is probably that I was too late to be in on the joke. Pop references to this book gave away all the funny parts to me. The evolutionary worldview was too much for me to laugh at. The blase treatment of God was not my cup of tea.

It was creative; I'll cede that. Adams insists the Earth was built in hopes that someone there would discover the question that prompts the answer to the meaning of life. That, of course, is 42, as a supercomputer revealed to the aliens ruling the universe. But just when a girl actually comes up with the answer, the Earth is bulldozed by the galactic highway construction crew, who builds a space road where the planet used to be.

That the answer to the meaning of life question could be a quantified amount, and that it requires a question to uncloak its ramifications, is inhererntly absurd, and therefore funny. But altogether, I could not get into the story and accept its premises. It just was not for me.

Closing Time by Joseph Heller

Yet another trip into Joseph Heller's inane, Wayside-School-for-adults world. I don't know why I bother. This was the sequel to Catch-22, and precisely like it in many respects, from the mistrust and dislike of authority, to the contradictory dialogue and sentence structure, to the excessive sexual content, and the absence of purpose for existence.

I just plodded through this, alternately bored, shocked, or disgusted. I would have quit halfway through, but I am not a quitter. That's right. The story picks up with the main characters from the first book and follows them through many improbable and largely pointless events. Once again, authority is incompetent to the point of imbecility, but this time it is the president who is lambasted. The syntax is in line with Heller's previous style. There is so much discussion of sex it is unbelievable. Nihilism and atheism are the religions du jour, with the entire world ending at the conclusion of the book.

Heller just seems like a disillusioned old man. He wrote himself and Kurt Vonnegut into the story at times, and they both have that tragic post-modern neo-Darwinist outlook. Sad, sad, sad.

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

So that is where all of those stereotypes come from. You know, the P.I. sits in his office as a beautiful girl comes in with a case for him to solve. He calls her "sweetheart." That sort of thing.

I enjoyed The Maltese Falcon. I truly did. I enjoy most any book that can be knocked out in an afternoon. Especially one with intelligent 20th-century prose, a mildly involving plot, and fascinating characters- really a fairly simple recipe. It's a wonder more authors don't follow it.

Hammett was gracious enough to eschew describing his characters' affair. He opted rather for a "fade to black" setup. Thank goodness. I've had enough of that, thank you. He never let the reader know too much. P.I. Sam Spade's motives and loyalties were not revealed until the end. Hammett's descriptions were memorable, like the opening scene in which he rendered his protagonist a blond satan with a faceful of v shapes.

Interestingly, almost every woman in the story was a redhead. I thought that singular, considering the haircolor ratio of the general populace. Anyways, the story was pleasant and mysterious. The Maltese Falcon was a nice little trip to the '20s.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

A young boy named Stephen grows into a man and begins to question everything he has been taught to believe in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Joyce's style was, briefly, different. He apparently had an aversion to quotation marks, identifying speakers, and alerting the reader to a change in space and time. He could have at least skipped a line when weeks had gone by in the story.

I am sure Joyce made deep, profound, multilayered philosophical points in this book, but all that really impressed upon me was his minor details. The way little noises grated on Stephen's nerves when he tried to pray, the way Stephen disciplined himself by denying the urge to clasp his hands behind his back and instead kept them firmly at his sides, and his thoughts and feelings regarding groups and friends all intrigued me.

I think that was all the merit the book had for me. Joyce's prose was just so obscure. He required the reader to infer too much. I am still not sure if Stephen had a girlfriend, or if she was just the object of his admiration. She never even had a name, and references to her were vague and confusing.

I suppose I don't have the intellectual capability to appreciate the profundity of Joyce. I think if a style hinders the meaning that is trying to be conveyed, the style should come second to clarity. At any rate, my high school English teacher dismissed the book, saying, "I don't think I accept that one intellectually," which gratified me. If he can disregard a revered piece of literature, so can I.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

The Things They Carried is a collection of the author's memories of the time he spent serving in the Vietnam War. I thought it was excellently written, but, as with other war novels, I don't feel that I can adequately pass judgment, for I've never been in combat. But, from my limited point of view, it was vulnerable, real, captivating, and sincere. It also led me to a realization on a related subject.

Video games make me intensely uncomfortable, especially war-themed ones. I've heard all kinds of justification for them- that boys are competitive and need an outlet; "Those are just pixels on the screen, not people"; "I just play to relax and have fun"; and the like. But after reading this book, I've decided the reason these video games bother me is their desensitizing properties. War is not a game, and reducing it to such is trivializing it to the point of ridicule. Playing war games is murder without consequences, without the complex emotions and psychological effects that go with it.

Video games basically mock the concept of war. The main problem, perhaps, is the "game over, play again?" feature. A true simulation of war would shut down permanently after the first time one is "killed." War, after all, is not sitting on a couch pressing buttons, and it should be treated as such. War is hell, not entertainment.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

I watched the excellent movie with Colin Firth first and read the book second, but I don't think that hampered my enjoyment. Rather, I think that enhanced it. I found the movie hilarious, and I know seeing the lines acted out made the text of the play come alive when I perused it afterwards. This play was truly funny, completely ridiculous and sardonic, with bits of wit interspersed in the craziness.

Jack leads a double life, posing as wild "Ernest" in the city, while continuing his sober life as "Jack" in the country. His friend Algy catches on, and jumps into his country life as Ernest himself. Algy, as Ernest, woos Jack's ward Cecily, while the woman Jack wooed as Ernest comes to find him. Hilarities ensue. Wilde was an incredibly funny man.

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor

I think I only checked out this book because of the author's cool name. For future reference, that really isn't a good reason to read anything.

A Good Man is Hard to Find is basically a collection of short stories depicting various characters in the American South during the mid-20th century. A religious vein runs through it all. From what I understand, O'Connor was a Catholic, so it makes sense. What I didn't understand was the subversive, mocking undertone that pervades the entirety of her work. Each story was sardonic, ironic, and fraught with flawed, dissatisfied people whose frustration with life was palpable. Needless to say, I did not enjoy it.

I am less than enamored with the South. I wonder if O'Connor felt the same way I do, for she mocks Southerners mercilessly. Her stories are taut flashes of Southern life, written with an undeniable skillfulness, but with a tragic disdain. I totally understand such a stance, but cannot delight in a book of such sentiments.

Lieutenant Hornblower by C.S. Forester

I watched the excellent A&E series of movies before cracking this book open, so I was a bit disappointed. The movies were embellished, and it was a better story because of it. The book tells the story through the eyes of Lieutenant Bush, a secondary character in the film, and makes no mention of Archie Kennedy, a key player in the movie. Still, the book had its merits.

Forester did his psychological motives routine, but it was all centered around Bush, whose motives are not nearly as much fun to analyze as Horatio's. I suppose he meant to juxtapose Hornblower and Bush a la Doyle's format with Watson and Holmes.

The book included a lot of naval terminology that I know went over my head, perhaps lessening my understanding of the extent of Forester's narrative. Nevertheless, the story was there, though perhaps in a less dramatic form than I had expected because of the movies.

The ending encompassed more time than the movie's did, and it shed new light on the character of Horatio. It was an enjoyable foray into his personal life, with a slightly bittersweet conclusion hinting at the lackluster marriage that follows in the later novels.

When the narrative moves away from Lieutenant Bush, Forester crafts infinitely better stories. For Bush was quite dull, and Forester said so himself.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Well, to sum up Catch-22 in three words: sex, sarcasm, and satire. That was about the entire book. It was the story of a WWII pilot and his experiences, plus those of many of his comrades. Another anti-war novel, I found it comparable to Slaughterhouse Five in many respects. The irreverency, the denial of the brave American soldier stereotype, and the proliferation of sex were present in both, but more so in Catch-22, if only because of its length.

Frankly, I was shocked at the number of sexual encounters depicted in this book, and the blase way in which they were treated. The rampant infidelity disconcerted me. But, I suppose, it is just another consequence of war.

Despite the flagrant explicitness, I found myself enjoying Heller's prose. His catch-22 was present even within his semantics. He got his point across very efficiently.

Of the entire book, though, perhaps the most shocking was the happy ending. So many 20th century authors gave their depressing novels equally depressing conclusions, but not Heller. The main character, Yossarian, discovers his friend is alive, and he takes off to join him. Remarque killed off his protagonist in All Quiet on the Western Front, Vonnegut's guy is stuck in the continual reliving of his life, but Heller sends Yossarian off with a beam of hope.

Gruesome violence, explicit sex, and incompetent leadership were eye-opening, but the basically happy ending was quite a different sort of shock.

The African Queen by C.S. Forester

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Forester started The African Queen right off with action, killing the potentially boring character and not giving any backstory. His plot was innovative and different, a romantic adventure carried by only two characters for the bulk of the novel. These characters were peculiar and unlikely, homely and average, and yet engaging and perfectly suited to the story.

Forester's treatment of the slightly explicit romance did not even rile me. It was chaste enough, convincing enough, and un-extraordinary enough to render it essential to the story. Not material for the youngest readers, perhaps, but after all I've read, modest in comparison.

Forester presented, on the whole, a healthy view of God. His missionay female lead frees herself from the rather legalistic beliefs her deceased brother had imposed upon her, and she repents her exploits wholeheartedly toward the end.

The prose was pretty and not too long-winded, reminiscent of The Scarlet Pimpernel in its fast-paced, 20th-century sensibility. Forester's ruminations over his characters' motives, psychological makeups, and thought processes were insightful and well-put, much as they were in the Horatio Hornblower series.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Yet another futuristic dystopia, a la 1984 and Brave New World. But this one had good things to say. Burgess' crowning jewel was his fervent belief in free choice and free will. His main character temporarily loses the ability to do anything wrong against society in general. This drives him to an unsuccessful attempt at suicide. His autonomy is eventually restored to him and he reverts back to his former, extremely depraved, self.

However, Burgess ends with a provocative chapter that was apparently left out of the orginal American version of the book. In the true ending, the main character reaches the age of eighteen, and he begins to lose the desire to indulge in antisocial behavior. He runs into a newly married acquaintance and discovers he wants the same for himself. He reflects, and realizes his would-be son would follow in his footsteps as an inevitable part of youth. The end.

Of course, that perhaps lends itself to the interpretation that depravity is merely a childhood attribute that one eventually grows out of. Obviously, that does not hold true. Still, Burgess' commentary on free will is important. Free will, the choice to do what ones wants, is imperative in a functioning society. Otherwise, citizens would be robots subject to the whims of the governing authorities. And that would not be a good thing.

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Some authors take interesting stuff and keep it interesting. Some authors take interesting stuff and make it boring. Still other authors take boring stuff and make it interesting. It is the rare author who can take boring stuff and make it even more boring. And yet, that is the enigma that is Willa Cather.

As if My Antonia's meandering, pointless descriptions of Nebraska and terrible narrative point of view (I cannot stand women writing from a male perspective, especially in the first person- what incredible presumption!) weren't enough, Cather follows up with a tedious chronicle of some priest's endeavors to convert the American southwest to Catholicism.

Cather is completely obsessed with landscapes. She just rambles on and on with metaphors and personification indefatiguably. Superfluous, flowery language does not a classic piece of literature make.

And the Catholicism. Leagalism to the point of nausea. Why don't they let the poor priests marry? The illicit scandals the book describes, and the ones still going on today, do nothing for the church.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

For some reason, I was satisfied with this book. Yes, it bore an uncanny resemblance to 1984, in all its detailed sordidness, but it had some advantages. After all, Brave New World was written 15 years before, rendering Huxley more prophetical than Orwell. And Huxley actually allowed for God. One character, wrapped up in the government system as he was, even said he believed there is a God, albeit one revealed through a pluralistic worldview involving all the gods mixed together.

Secondarily, Brave New World was just written more skillfully. Huxley employed a concise, fast-paced prose style, and his characters and world were better-looking than Orwell's, at least in my imagination. Orwell meandered and spent scores of pages soliloquizing on boring details of his futuristic government; Huxley neglected to do so.

I was disappointed with the end of Brave New World, which involves a key character reverting to asceticism before suicide, but Huxley's worldview, while including some spirituality, was by no means exclusively Christian.

One last reason for my enthusiam for this novel would have to be that the author was, I am almost ashamed to say it, surprisingly good-looking. No, really. If you just remove his dorky inch-thick glasses, you have something there.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness is a meandering account of a seaman sent to the depths of the African jungle to retrieve an ill ivory agent who is revered throughout the area for his diplomatic and oratorical abilities. This thin plot is buried beneath layers of symbolism and indiscernible language. Conrad's ultimate conclusion involves the depravity of the human heart, although whether he effectively made his point I cannot determine.

Everything is sketched out so lightly the story is hard to own. Kurtz is the amazing agent who has commandeered the ivory trade in colonial Africa, but his engaging personality is told to the reader rather than shown, and his corrupted nature is barely hinted at. I suppose I am a product of an overstimulated culture that reiterates points over and over to the point of ridiculousness, and I just am not subtle enough to pick up on the genius of Conrad. Oh well. My loss, I'm sure.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Good old Jane Austen. She never fails to entertain. Sense and Sensibility was sufficiently pleasant, suitably suspenseful, and ultimately satisfying. The story proceeded at a constant, steady pace. The main characters, two sisters, provided interesting contrasts. Of course, it was all consummately Austen—single girls with little income and therefore little chance of marrying well, end up marrying well. But it is a charming plot device even the third or fourth time around.

Extensive immersion in 19th-century literature has conditioned me to the point where I can sense the feelings that were trying to be conveyed by these authors. I have familiarized myself with the language and its conventions through a glut of books and movies, and now I can understand almost everything that is said, and I can knock out a book like this in a few days.

At the gym once, I was watching daytime television, and a woman was promoting her newly released novel. She mentioned that romances are not just an emerging trend, for, after all, "what was Jane Austen writing two hundred years ago, but highbrow chick lit?" That made me laugh so much.

But how true. Austen's stuff is, fundamentally, just romance. But the chasteness, the propriety, the verbal sparring, the defiance of class, the delightful plot twists, the extensive vocabularies, the inherent reverence- it all makes her work something more.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

When evaluating religions and sects, it is helpful to analyze what each says about Jesus, for that is often the differentiating factor that sets them apart. Likewise with Slaughterhouse Five. When the first page presented a line from "Away in a Manger," I knew I was going to encounter some religious discussion.

Vonnegut makes reference to Jesus throughout his book. Much of the action takes place during World War II, and so he makes the main character a chaplain's assistant and says Jesus's name was odious to many soldiers. Later on, he calls Jesus the most powerful Being in the universe, though whether he was being facetious I could not tell. He also says that the lesson of the Crucifixion was one should not hurt people with connections, commenting that God should have crucified a bum and then made him His son, with the proclamation that no one should harm those in low places. The main character, who is not limited by the fourth dimension, travels back in time and validates Jesus' existence.

The book was anti-war. The main character is abducted by aliens who show him that everything that happens is supposed to happen, and is always simultaneously happening. People do not really die because they are still in existence in millions of other moments. The main character finds this is true as he travels between different moments of his life, over and over and over. Vonnegut uses this premise to superimpose war-related events, showing the horror of it and such.

The convoluted structure makes it hard to draw out the point of it all. I was mostly concerned with Vonnegut's religious commentary. He saw the Crucifixion as an unfortunate accident. What he did not take into account is ironic in light of his premise. From Genesis onward, God has been making known the fact that the Crucifixion was going to occur. He knew it was going to happen when He created the world. Within this is the conundrum expressed by Vonnegut's aliens. Everything that happens, God already knew was going to happen. He is sovereign over all events, and He is not limited by time. I think He sees the world as the aliens do- altogether, from beginning to end. As Jesus is God, Vonnegut's weak, shortsighted Jesus is quite the misunderstanding.

But Vonnegut was on the right track in his book. All are not limited by the constraints of time. There is One who isn't. He's just not an alien.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass chronicles his journey from fatherless slave to self-sustained free individual in this autobiography. His discovery of his worth as a person was intriguing; the attitudes and obstacles he encountered and overcame rather amazing. He had profound points to make about the institution of slavery. And he did it all concisely. Brevity is a virtue, after all. Altogether, it was a very well-done piece.

I especially appreciated the Appendix. There, Douglass analyzes his presentation of Christianity throughout his book and definitively ascertains the mutual exclusiveness of the religion of the slaveholders and true Christianity.

It was a slim volume with important points to make. Douglass was a naturally intelligent person who helped to show the world that Aftrican-Americans are simply people with the same endowments and abilities as anyone else. In fact, I admired him so much, I wrote an essay on him and got second place in a contest. Douglass won me $100. I like him a lot.

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair is an exceedingly large book. It took me two weeks of diligent reading to get through it. While the book was entertaining at times, I could never bring myself to read it again. Granted, Thackeray had an open, engaging style of writing. But he was just too tedious, too often. The prose is incredibly detailed, and the text is riddled with references that are now relatively obscure.

Nevertheless, Thackeray was a very astute social observer, and he shows wisdom regarding propriety, duty, and social responsibility that I found remarkable for the thirty-something he was when he wrote the novel. I further appreciated his noble and respectful views toward genuine Christianity.

The most disappointing aspect of the book was the fulfillment of its subtitle: "A Novel Without A Hero." For me, the most gratifying part of reading a book, especially a long one, is becoming acquainted with a likable, intelligent protagonist whom I can follow some hundreds of pages with a vested interest in his well-being, and after seeing him to his happy ending, look back upon with fondness. But, of course, that is not the case here, as Thackeray reminds his reader throughout the novel. There is only the artful schemer Becky, the pathetically weak-minded Amelia, the proud and spoiled George and Rawdon, and the clumsy "spooney" Dobbin.

I know where Thackeray was going with this thing. The rigid hierarchies of his time were ridiculous, stifling, and ultimately unfulfilling, even for those on top. The love of money really is the root of all kinds of evil. Not everyone is what they seem to be. They are all excellent lessons. But perhaps 699 pages without a character to sympathize with was not the most effective way to get them across.

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

Babbitt, a middle-aged businessman, one day begins to ponder the meaning and purpose of his life. He is a successful real estate agent, but he wonders if there is more to life than making a profit, establishing oneself in society, and raising one's children properly, so that they can raise children properly, so that they can raise children properly. He travels and meets eccentric people, all in his quest to discover what it is all really about.

Christianity is derided throughout the book. Through a dead Presbyterian church, Christianity is ridiculed, belittled, and misrepresented. More's the pity. If Babbitt could have experienced the true version of it, he might have come back with something of substance.

Instead, Babbitt's conclusion involves the man giving his son permission to pursue the career of his choosing, rather than the one he had picked out for him. It is a worthy, if incomplete, end. Allowing one's children the ability to make their own paths in life is not everything, but perhaps it is a start.

Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd C. Douglas

This novel left me stymied. I could not determine whether it was sacrilegious or not. Its comments on Jesus, and the pivotal concept of the book for that matter, were quite confusing.

The main character discovers a way to harness energy from doing good deeds to enhance his personality and abilities. The process was not explained. All the main character did was some intropsection and he magically discovered an innovative surgery method. The connection with his good deeds was not clear. It was all very peculiar.

Apparently this mysterious process was how Jesus was able to perform His miracles. No position on His divinity was established, so the extent of the heresy was hard to see. The concept of God was even more obscure. A conversation with an agnostic minister gives only the experience of the main character duirng his introspective times as evidence for a higher power. Considering the book was written by a minister, it is a pathetic theology at best.

The romantic elements, too, were unsatisfactory. The condition of the characters' relationship was up in the air most of the time, and the plot relied too heavily on coincidences to bring the two together. A lot of the book was extraneous and slow. It was a very strange work.

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

A friend of mine attending a Baptist school mentioned her class was reading The Scarlet Pimpernel, so I decided to check it out, though I did so with a bit of trepidation. The last book introduced to me in such a manner was Silas Marner, and I did not relish embarking again on something similar to that. Happily, though, I discovered in Pimpernel a mildly entertaining bit of British-French historical romance written with a 20th-century sensibility.

The book is fairly fast-paced, with the plot's events limited to about a week's time. Briefly, a French girl is forced by blackmail to endeavor to find the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, a Briton who has been sneaking into revolutionary France to save aristocrats from the guillotine. She discovers the Pimpernel is none other than her boring, shallow husband whom she resents. He is in France rescuing people, unaware of the betrayal, so she rushes off there to save him, falling in love with him along the way.

The novel featured sufficient twists and turns, and the prose was pleasantly concise. The characters were well-wrought, and the story wasn't hindered by background or extraneous plotlines. Altogether, an excellent effort.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Once again, my frustration with the stage medium hindered my experience. I simply cannot read a play silently and enjoy it. The Glass Menagerie was short enough for me to complete during one of my sisters' basketball games, and I think the game alone would have been more engaging, which is saying a lot, because I abhor organized sports.

A young man narrates an account of an evening with his mother, sister, and friend from work. The mother has been contriving to get her delicate, homebound daughter a boyfriend, and she finally gets her son to take a friend home for dinner to meet her. The unaware friend talks with the young girl for an evening, capturing her emotions, before mentioning that he is engaged to another. He leaves, and the girl is heartbroken.

The storyline was pathetic and sad, but I am sure that is what Williams was going for. From what I have read, the play was based on Williams' relationship with his sister. How sad that these characters existed in real life. I could hardly stand to encounter them on the printed page.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

I am really, really gullible. I actually believed Goldman until the last page. A hint of scepticism lingered when I had finshed the book, and a quick glance at Wikipedia turned my cheeks red with the realization that I had been suckered in.

I suppose that is a testament to the believability of Goldman's prose. The Princess Bride begins with the narrator explaining how his dad had read this book from his native land to him when he was younger. The narrator grew up, read the book himself, and discovered his father had skipped over all the boring parts of the story. So, to make the book more accessible to readers, he abridged the original, and presented it in this volume.

The novel's plot, interwoven with the narrator's comments and asides, follows Buttercup, the most beautiful girl in Florin, some perhaps medieval kingdom, as she loves and loses, loves and loses again, and finally just loves. It is wildly imaginative and ridiculous, completely hilarious from beginning to end. The action and romance never flag; the story has an entirely modern sensibility.If you've ever seen the movie, the book is exactly like it, but more.

The author totally had me from beginning to end. He affirmed that Florin was a real place; he had been there, met Stephen King's Florinese cousins (that should have tipped me off right there), etc. It all sounded so real.

But, of course, an Internet search amended that. Turns out a florin is just a unit of currency. The narrator's life was completely fabricated. Goldman doesn't have a detached son named Jason. He has two daughters, and he wrote the story because one wanted a bedtime tale about a princess, and the other wanted one about a bride. Voila- The Princess Bride.

1984 by George Orwell

The afterword of this book said that a smug person would think that 1984 was merely a Stalinist projection, but that in fact the novel has bearing on us all today.

I'd like to qualify that statement. 1984 seemed entirely Communistic, an obvious response on Orwell's part to the world events surrounding him during his lifetime. However, the book still has applications because Communism has not been entirely obliterated. In fact, I believe there are vestiges of it within American politics today.

The fundamental problem with the 1984 scenario is the complete dismissal of God. In the Orwellian future, "God is power," and nothing else. As if God were merely a metaphor!

Obviously, Orwell's book has had lasting reverberations throughout culture. His newspeak and doublespeak were some of the most prophetic creations in the novel, for the English language continues to degenerate, and the completely offenceless vocabulary does not seem so far off.

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

I had to look up the title to understand the mythological allusion. A man sculpts a girl, and she is given life by the gods. In the same way, Henry Higgins plucks Eliza Doolittle off the street and gives her a new life as a lady of society. Excellent, Mr. Shaw.

When I first read the play, I was shocked by its brevity. Where was the story? I thought. But, over time, I have come to realize that the stage is a far different medium that that of the conventional novel page. Only the core action can be portrayed in the limited time a play is allowed, and so many of the fascinating encounters sure to appear in a lengthier form of a story must be cut for time's sake. I can accept that.

The story was truly a great concept. I was enraptured with the linguistic content. Do our words really contain that many discernible sounds? Letting Higgins remain a bachelor was a wonderful touch. It was completely unexpected, and entirely appropriate.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

I once came across a Christian website entitled, "The Phantom Tollbooth." Naturally, my curiousity was piqued. Assuming it had something to do with the Phantom of the Opera, I dismissed the subject until I encountered this book.

After catching the title in The Thomas Jefferson Education, an instructional manual showing homeschoolers how to educate with a literature-based curriculum, I decided The Phantom Tollbooth would be worth my while.

Altogether, I think I missed the age window of maximum enjoyment. I believe I am actually too old for something. The adventure happened far too quickly, and I think my marathon period-romance efforts have conditioned me to expect scores of pages before the pace picks up. The Tollbooth was a moderately witty book, but the real wit gets lost in synthetic witticisms that feel like imitations of the truly funny stuff.

I didn't feel as if I got to know the characters. We parted ways before any friendship could be established. Nevertheless, it was a great concept. Perhaps for younger readers who might pick it up, it will seem extraordinary and new. For me, I kept thinking I'd read something just like it before. Still, I can imagine a younger me thinking I'd stumbled onto some wonderfully original story.

Truly, there is a need for witty writing in children's literature. The Tollbooth might help to fill the void, but I cannot really say, for I am no longer the target demographic.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I really liked the title, I have to say. And the format, over a hundred pages without a chapter break, was a bit tedious, but very suited to the task at hand. I'm slightly desensitized to prison camp material after years of The Diary of Anne Frank, Night, and similar stuff, but I could still find appreciation for Solzhenitsyn's account from the bottom of my complacent, naive, suburban heart.

The book did feel rehashed to me, but I have to commend Solzhenitsyn for such an innovative style. It is not easy to make a novel one day long both engaging and plausible. The story follows the main character from sunrise to sundown, chronicling his meagre meals, his never-ending workload, and the desperate maneuvers he went through every day to just survive.

The Communist Russians bore a striking resemblance to the Nazis. Their basic tactics were the same: starve and deprive the prisoners so that they are too weak to escape or revolt, but still able to work. Ruthless and sadistic, but efficient.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Surprisingly, Lord of the Flies was not quite as violent and sick as I expected it to be. I'd heard it was nausea-inducing. But, I mean, only two kids died.

That last comment would be a joke. I promise, I'm pro-life. In every sense of the phrase.

Anyways, Golding was a rather well-paced storyteller. The action meandered some, but not too much. The symbolism was somewhat oppressive, but I suppose it is all part and parcel of such a study of the human condition.

I enjoyed the character of Simon. Rational prophet-types are always fun.

I believe I caught the author's drift- we're all just a plane crash away from complete barbarism. It is a fascinating point to make, and one I would adhere to, for its biblical elements if nothing else. If man is, in fact, inherently sinful, then of course taking him out of society, a policed environment, would allow his true nature to show through. Well done, Golding.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

I have an admission to make. I hate stream-of-consciousness writing. And, I think it is incredibly annoying when a novel's narrators are switched every chapter. And, I could not care less about the sordid lives of backwoods hicks. And, I absolutely abhor their speech patterns.

So I guess from the outset this book did not have much going for it. What happens? A Southern matriarch dies. As she had expressed a desire to be buried in her hometown, the family uses everything they have to get her body there. Unfortunately, they fall apart, literally and figuratively, along the way.

One son is sent to an asylum. Another has to sell the love of his life, his prized horse. Another damages his leg permanently. Another thinks his mom turned into a fish after dying. The daughter finds out she is pregnant, out of wedlock. The father is selfish and oblivious. The book concludes with his second wedding, the day his deceased wife is buried.

To top it all off, the mother rots away in her traveling coffin for most of the story. Faulkner, from what I understand, had a deep fascination for the people of the South. Why he should construct such an unflattering testament to their depravity is slightly confusing. I suppose he was only trying to present life as it is, as any good author should strive to do.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Edna Pontillier feels fettered by her husband and her life, so she explores more unconventional avenues of expression, from art to other men, before committing suicide.

The Awakening was a sorry state of affairs, or almost-affairs, if you will. Ms. Pontillier was trying desperately to break out of her perceived bonds. What was wrong with this woman's life? Perfect husband, perfect children, perfect mansion, perfect vacations, free range to while away her time pointlessly. What is so oppressive about that?

It seems as if all Edna wanted was unrealistic, clandestine, overtly passionate, unlawful romance. She just couldn't control the desires common to all people. And in the end she realized she didn't even know what she wanted, or what would bring her fulfillment. Did she stop, reflect, repent, and carry on with a new resolve to live purposefully? No. She killed herself. Personally, I think that was just an easy way for Chopin to finish the book. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise- suicide is a plot cop-out.