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.