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.