Green Mountain Farm by Elliott Merrick

"What were leaky roofs and cold hands and gray days and rock as compared with such riches of freedom and aloneness," Elliott Merrick writes of raising his family on a farm in Vermont in the 1930s. In a series of essays, Merrick recalls the labor and reward of forging an existence out in wilderness, the work and pleasure of living off the land, not just living on it. He characterizes the spectrum of personalities inhabiting his corner of Vermont, philosophizes on the nature of the writer's craft and the nature of nature itself, and lovingly reminisces about his children's younger years. All the while he maintains his affection for and devotion to the sometimes breathlessly severe, sometimes sweetly mild, always overwhelmingly beautiful landscape.

Merrick effortlessly describes moonlit nights spent cross-country skiing, lakes and streams and waterfalls, verdant summers flavored by blackberries and raspberries. He also acknowledges the harsh frosts and never-ending overcast days. Whatever he writes of takes little to imagine; he penetrates to the essential aspects of a blustery autumn day or the fleeting leap of a doe, his rendering easy and accurate, infused with a pervasive sense of actuality.

Perhaps one of Merrick's most penetrating insights involves his Thoreauvian sense of immediacy, his ability to recognize the present and embrace it. "Into my mind comes the realization that here I am, now, out of all time and all space, here in this place. And I say to myself, This is my house. My woman. A baby. Two babies. Simple things like that." Indeed simplicity, for Merrick as for Thoreau, is a chief virtue.

Merrick at one point recalls a canoe trip he and his wife took. He meditates on the balance between old and new, the sleekly engineered boat gliding on the untouched river of the ancients. He rejoices in accepting the best of both worlds. "And here it is again, the wild and the civilized side by side, and we in the middle, picking and choosing a little of each." In this he almost goes beyond Thoreau, reconciling a deep admiration for the natural world with a balanced appreciation for modern advancements.

Merrick refuses to idolize the past, asserting that the present has all of history's benefits along with improvements of its own, making it the best time yet in which to live. Merrick's refreshing enthusiasm for the here and now illuminates his work, transmitting to the reader an anticipation and a longing for the exhilarating balance he finds in life.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Like Machiavelli with The Prince, Sun Tzu wrote a manual containing instructions for matters of state, only the latter lived one thousand years earlier and half the world away. Sun Tzu's writing pleased the king of his province in 500 B.C. China, and the treatise continues to be revered for its military wisdom today. I heard a guest on a radio program mention it, and so I decided I should read it myself.

"[T]he general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack," declares Sun Tzu. He makes it clear that deception is the key to winning a war; keeping the enemy confused the primary goal. Furthermore, Sun Tzu encourages leaders to keep their subordinates guessing too, by concealing plans from all but a select few and thereby preserving their veil of secrecy from the spies that inevitably creep into the ranks of troops.

For Sun Tzu, flexibility is paramount. "According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one's plans." A leader should base his movements on his enemy's actions, watching him sedulously and responding appropriately. When attacking, Sun Tzu advises targeting the opponent's weakest point. "Military tactics are like unto water, for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. So in war, the way to avoid what is strong is to strike what is weak. Water shapes its course according to the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing."

Though Sun Tzu's enthusiasm for war dominates the work, he counsels cautious circumspection in inciting conflict. "[A] kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life." He recognizes that war is irrevocable and urges leaders to refrain from waging wars merely out of personal spite. For where deception reigns virtuous can only be hardship and turmoil, ceaseless unrest.

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

Read the classics to learn how to write well – doesn’t everyone already know this? Apparently not, for the aptly-named Prose makes sure her namesake is quite clear on the subject: "You will do yourself a disservice if you confine your reading to the rising star whose six-figure, two-book contract might seem to indicate where your own work should be heading." Really? Mass-market American tastes shouldn't necessarily be consulted for examples of brilliant writing?

I don't mean to be so sarcastic. Prose's treatise on developing an eye and an ear for writing is spot-on. She, after all, was once a "bookish sixteen-year-old" who idolized Austen and the Brontës, unaware not only that "no one wrote that way anymore," but also that "no one lived that way any longer." Prose liberally quotes her favorite authors, deconstructing their techniques to determine what good writing is and how it is formed. By focusing on the basic elements of a novel or story, she manages a comprehensive examination of what constitutes a literary masterpiece.

Prose constantly discounts venerated rules of composition: “There are many occasions in literature in which telling is more effective than showing.” On the assumption that fictional conversation should not attempt to mimic the real: “Then why is so much written dialogue less colorful and interesting that what we can overhear daily in the Internet café, the mall, and on the subway?” She encourages adhering to some general guidelines but gleefully appends them with masterly exceptions.

Her observations are accurate and insightful. “[D]ialogue usually contains as much or even more subtext than it does text…One mark of bad written dialogue is that it is only doing one thing, at most, at once.” Elsewhere she notes, “A well-chosen detail can tell us more about a character - his social and economic status, his hopes and dreams, his visions of himself – than a long explanatory passage.”

Prose dutifully follows her axioms with appropriate examples culled from classic works. These excerpts illuminate her points, making the book practical and understandable. She realizes the limitations of such instruction though, admitting, “Beauty, in a sentence, is ultimately as difficult to quantify or describe as beauty in a painting or in a human face.” She concludes that the only way to determine whether one has produced a rose or a weed is to spend time in rose gardens.

The book is engaging and profitable, like taking a good English class from a seasoned and passionate teacher. Prose rightly maintains that writing cannot be learned in the vacuum of a classroom; there is no substitute for the real thing. All writers, from the aspiring to the established, would do well to realize that they are only “the dot at the end of the long, glorious, complex sentence in which literature has been written.”

The Best American Short Stories 2006 Edited by Ann Patchett

As I perused this collection, persistent questions tapped on my shoulder: Why do I read? Why do authors write? Why did they write these stories? Why were these stories included in this book? Unfortunately, "Why?" may be the only question in the world that can never be definitively, indisputably answered. We make partial attempts at settling the issue, but unresolved elements always remain. Nonetheless, Ann Patchett ventures her opinion of the matter of the short story and its purpose in her introduction. "I haven't been able to shake the notion that short story writers are famous people and that short stories are life-altering things. I believe it is human nature to try and persuade others that our most passionately held beliefs are true so that they too can know the joy of our deepest convictions."

Evaluating the book in that light, I think the purpose of this collection centers around inspiring compassion for others. While this is sometimes manifested in benign portraits of lonely senior citizens, bemused immigrants, and tragic marriages, at other times it seems merely a vehicle for gaining widespread acceptance of the practices of the most outlandish members of society. Homosexuality and all manner of promiscuity are boldly, kindly, even pedestrianly presented, as if such liasons were not only permissable but laudable, just another facet of a diverse civilization.

The unifying theme that these stories evoke is a continuation of the American motif of isolation. The individual is triumphed at the expense of the community. The gay military man unable to reach out to the needy family of a deployed solider nor commit to his "partner;" the sex-surfeited girl stringing along her smitten boyfriend; the aloof lesbian whose only human connections are fleeting, physical, and base - the individuals are worlds unto themselves, deceiving even their closest companions as to the true nature of their relationships, unable to foster meaningful interactions, nor engage in fully honest discourse. Here we have only ourselves; father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, friend - all are peripheral appendages with whom complete sincerity and verity, with whom selfless love, is tragically impossible. The stories form a paean to self.

So what are Ann Patchett's "deepest convictions" - that the individual is to be prized above all else? That the individual should pursue whatever feels right inside him, regardless of extraneous considerations? How should we apply these "life-altering" stories - Become more self-absorbed and self-obsessed than we already are? Accept whatever society foists on us as social norms?

Literature, like life, is vacuous, redundant, without a clear and defined purpose. Saying these short stories are worth reading is like saying one's aim in life is to just "be." The pursuit of truth and beauty is admirable only if it ends fruitfully. To get meat, hunt a deer. To find truth and beauty, seek the One who holds them, whose very being is composed of them.

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

Unbelievably lengthy, exceedingly verbose, purposefully tedious, Tristram Shandy was one of those books whose Introduction was infinitely more fruitful than the text itself. Peter Conrad, in his introductory remarks, extols Sterne's novel for its daring innovation, unconventional liberties, and subversive wit, meanwhile praising other prominent authors of the eighteenth century, making a thoughtful summary of their respective contributions to the novel form. He makes an excellent case for the merits of this book. While Sterne's originality holds, undoubtedly, historical literary importance, experienced at the present time it lacks immediacy, and ultimately, relevancy.

Ostensibly an autobiography, the book purports to be the "life and opinions" of the eponymous character, though little of either makes an appearance. Tristram famously does not appear himself until well into the narrative, a fact he readily admits is singular: "I am...almost into the middle of my third volume - and no farther than to my first day's life." What, then, constitutes the bulk of the novel? In a word, digressions. Tristram chronicles the inane conversations of his father, uncle, and neighbors, meandering along not only their rabbit paths, but taking liberal detours of his own. He freely addresses the reader at times, leaves blank pages, provides accompanying graphics, and wantonly flits from topic to topic, desperately trying to maintain an accurate chronology but coming nowhere near. Like an attention-challenged child who tries to behave but cannot for the life of him sit still, Sterne's spastic narrator never stays on one subject for long, himself least of all.

What sort of person Tristram truly is remains unanswered, though the haphazard sketches he produces of the personalities that peopled his childhood make it evident he was not raised without some degree of eccentricity. His uncle, an emasculate war veteran, and his father, a would-be ivory tower intellectual, volley with the pompous curate and bumbling parish doctor over antiquated obscurities and the more mundane happenings of the household. Though Tristram's father blathers nonsense most of the time, opining about his treasured pet theories involving medieval minutiae like how one's name affects one's life and the physical location of the soul, occasionally he makes an acute observation. Speaking of auxiliary verbs, he avers, "Now, by the right use and application of these...there is no one idea can enter [Tristram's] brain...but a magazine of conceptions and conclusions may be drawn forth from it. - Didst thou ever see a white bear...Would I had seen a white bear...If I should...If I should never..."

Little of what passes for the life of Tristram Shandy is of any consequence to anyone, and Sterne is well aware of this. Inquiring about an anecdote Tristram's father had just told, his mother asks, "[W]hat is all this story about?" The curate replies, "A cock and a bull - And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard." And there the book ends.

Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac

Balzac designates Goriot "Pere," father, because the man devotes all he has to his two daughters. They define his amorphous existence, creating the sharp edge of poverty that he lives on in his old age. Though Goriot bestows upon the girls enormous dowries to ensure they are able to marry whomever they want and desires in return only love and a place in their homes, they deny him both. Nevertheless, he procures money for them whenever they plead for the sums their mercenary husbands refuse to grant them. Goriot is only too happy to suffer in miserable squalor if it adds to his daughters' comfort. One day, though, the debts become too much for him to bear. Goriot collapses into a fatal illness, and eventually dies, attended by neither of those whom he had loved so much.

Goriot's privation for the sake of his daughters forces him to live in a boardinghouse, along with varying examples of Parisian life in 1819. One fellow boarder, Eugene Rastignac, a poor law student from the country, befriends him when he discovers Goriot's daughters occupy the lofty sphere of society he desperately wants to inhabit. Eugene becomes increasingly enmeshed in their affairs, at the end burying Goriot when his daughters refuse to.

Eugene develops a profound respect for Goriot's unwavering affection toward his children, viewing him as the prototype of a father. Eugene is disgusted by the ignominious end the man comes to. "Great souls cannot stay long in this world. How, indeed, should noble feelings exist in harmony with a petty, paltry, and superficial society?" Eugene charges society with killing Goriot, finally declaring war on it to avenge the man's death.

Society, Parisian society certainly, with its values, may share some of the blame in the tragedy of Goriot. Materialism, hedonism, the unscrupulous clawing to the top of the heap - the world Goriot's girls inhabited did not triumph unselfish filial duty. But Goriot should have instilled in them the morals and beliefs that would have allowed them to stand tall amidst such pettiness. Giving them all they wanted was not loving them perfectly, not doing what was best for them. Permitting them to marry mercenaries directly contradicted the purpose of the large dowries. Scrambling to find money every time they asked for it only reinforced their remorseless greed.

Eugene refuses to accept the path society would have him take, declining to marry the young, naive heiress who adores him, but to whom he is indifferent. Instead, he aligns himself with Goriot's more compassionate, contrite daughter. As she is still married, it is not the most moral choice, but it is infinitely noble in his, and Balzac's, eyes. Why greed and disrespect for one's parents are sins in Balzac's world, but adultery is not, is unclear.

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

The misguided romance between Dr. Zhivago and Lara is central to this book, and it parallels the Russians' fatal infatuation with socialism that forms the background of the story. Zhivago and Lara come of age and begin their own families separately during the early 20th century, while Marxism is gaining traction and the revolt against landed aristocracy and the Czarist regime rages. In a caprice of war, the two are thrown together more than once, kindling an ongoing affair. But just as war throws them together, it also tears them apart, and they both eventually come to ignobly solitary ends.

Doctor Zhivago is a comprehensive, loftily toned novel that tries hard to be a worthy heir to the legacy of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, et al. However, try as it might, it never quite reaches such heights. Neither Zhivago's appending poetry, which is highly praised in the novel, nor the narrative of the book itself come across as anything but pretentious and self-centered imitations. The characters certainly discuss the masters of Russian literature often enough, but that only sharpens the contrast between their fictional predecessors and them.

Pasternak repeatedly falls into telling rather than showing. When describing a conversation between Zhivago and his uncle, Pasternak says he had never "heard views as penetrating, apt, or inspiring," but these remarkable comments never make an appearance. Pasternak has too much confidence in the profundity of his protagonist. Zhivago writes "Playing at People, a Gloomy Diary or Journal Consisting of Prose, Verse, and What-have-you, Inspired by the Realization that Half the People Have Stopped Being Themselves and Are Acting Unknown Parts," a title whose self-amused attempt at witticism would be at home in these modern incarnations of narcissism, blogs.

But perhaps it would not be wise to blame Pasternak for his shortcomings and mistake "the spirit of the times" for personal inadequacy, as Lara's husband does. As socialist thought slowly permeated every aspect of their lives, it alienated them from each other. "We began to be idiotically pompous with each other," Lara explains to Zhivago, "you felt you had to be clever in a certain way about certain world-important themes." Unable to communicate accurately and thus believing he no longer has his wife’s esteem, Lara's husband joins the army and throws himself headlong into the revolution, effectually abandoning her.

Lara attributes the break-up of her marriage largely to the advent of Communism. To some extent, she is justified. The book chronicles the brutality of socialism, the incongruity between its sweet promises and its bitter actuality. Without a free market, people starve physically, and also intellectually and spiritually. Communist thought enthralled Russians, from the radicals at the universities to the impoverished peasants. Just as Russians deserted their traditions, their native values, so Zhivago betrayed his constant, devoted wife for Lara. The affair gives him no peace or satisfaction, just wrenching guilt and an addled conscience.

Pasternak seems to say that Zhivago, like Lara's husband, would never have strayed had he not been subjected to the insensibility and turmoil of the revolution. Morals became as muddled as politics then. Zhivago feels helpless, powerless, facing unassailable history. "He realized he was a pygmy before the monstrous machine of the future."

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison's organic prose wends its intoxicating way around you until you're so mesmerized you hardly notice the insidious web it has trapped you in. Song of Solomon begins with a troubled man perched precariously atop a hospital roof, and from there descends into the murky depths of African-American life in the mid-20th century. Highlighting significant points in the lives of one family, the narrative finally rests on the son, Macon Dead Jr, and the journey he embarks on to comprehend the past and its bearing on his future.

At the beginning, the past looks terribly sordid. The sordid taste never really leaves the story, but it does abate somewhat. Morrison draws her characters in untempered manifestations of vulgarity, making no attempt to wipe off the gritty dirt and grime of their lives. Initially, they seem like aberrations of human nature unwittingly stumbled upon. But Morrison later justifies their untoward actions, building a logical scaffolding beneath a seemingly senseless, groundless mess.

Indeed, much of the book explores the underlying causes of the characters', and by extension the African-American culture's, distinctive burdens. "The cards are stacked against us," says Macon's friend Guitar, "and just trying to stay in the game...makes us do funny things. Things we can't help. Things that make us hurt one another." But while undoubtedly many vices can be attributed to cause and effect, this outlook does not admit an adequate address of free will. It is far too easy to shrug off people's shortcomings, blaming them on a troubled childhood or a legacy of sin. At some point each much assume responsibility for his actions.

Morrison's insight crescendoes with self-absorbed Macon's moment of clarity on a dark night in the Blue Ridge Mountains: "Apparently he thought he deserved only to be loved - from a distance, though - and given what he wanted." He later identifies the catalysts behind the individual catastrophes of his respective family members, expanding his understanding of them and gaining compassion where once was merely contempt. But from there Morrison devolves into nebulous philosophizing, attempts at mythologizing, and facile plot twists that lose the edge of realism that Macon's inner revelation and outer realizations have.

Morrison's earthy cadence embodies the souls of her subjects. Her confident assurance in her ability to create a cultural mythology is, strange though the comparison might be, almost Tolkienesque. But that she embraces not just the sinners but also the sin, dismissing their culpability with rational explanations, tarnishes her work.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

We tend to view the past as unrelated to the present- people did those sorts of things then, but they'd never do that now. It is odd to think that the neat, established facts of the past were once someone's messy, uncertain future. Henry Fleming reflects on this before he first sees combat: "There was a portion of the world's history which he had regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone over the horizon and had disappeared forever." The Civil War, however, is looming over his, and soon the immediacy of battle comes crashing down upon him.

A young Yankee farm boy, Henry alternates between honest introspection and self-approbating denial. Crane presents him with unflinching authenticity, exhibiting his naïve bravado, his cowardly self-justification, his struggles with life, death, and why. Marching towards battle, Henry encounters his first casualty. “He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare, the impulse of the living to try and read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.”

Henry flees like a threatened animal when he faces the enemy. He recognizes his cowardice but reasons it away, attributing it to a natural sense of self-preservation and excusing it by his later semi-heroics. Crane allows Henry some latitude, giving him moments of unimpeachable profundity, but he nevertheless maintains an ironic distance from him, subtly mocking his pride, which even Confederate bullets glance off harmlessly.

Henry comes face to face with the senselessness of war, but his initial thoughts when the battle is over banish any recollection of it. “He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover’s thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks- an existence of soft and eternal peace.”

Henry’s primary impulse is to escape the struggle and strife of the battlefield conflict. Ironically, though, the seeds of such vying lie planted within him. Pride, Henry’s distinctive vice, is at the root of all schisms, and the pride Henry felt in finally presenting himself to the world as a worthy soldier is not so far removed from the pride in the South Robert E. Lee relied on to lead his troops in defying the North.

Crane’s pervasive irony makes uncertain to what extent Henry’s illusions of himself are false. He is a vain boy, to be sure, but he deserves credit for shoring up against his fear and carrying his country’s flag bravely. He wades mainly in the intellectual shallows, but he merits praise for venturing forth as far as he dares. Henry is as complex and blameless, or to blame, as any human. Where our own illusions begin and end are just as vague.

The Short Stories of Henry James, Collected by Clifton Fadiman

If Jane Austen's contributions to literature are, as she deprecatingly rendered them, "the little bit of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush," then Henry James' are scribbles made on napkins from a comfortable seat in his club. An unspecified ailment contracted in his youth hindered James from doing much more than that. A rich, untethered American who spent much of his life as a member of European society, James wrote prolifically on the dichotomy between old Europe's traditions and the new American ideals. His language is rich and often portentious, hinting at subterranean meanings. The words and ideas themselves are so substantial that they often form the bulk of his stories; in many, little overt action occurs at all.

Inaction in and of itself plays a major part in the stories collected here, especially within "The Great Good Place." A novelist, paralyzed by the minutiae of daily life, seeks out a refuge where he can live simply, and in doing so, simply live. James' picture of the "place" is bewitching, an earthbound utopia of cool gardens, tinkling bells, and gracious libraries. The novelist comes back to the real world in the end, though, for James fashions the place not as a final destination, but as a temporary vacation from pressing responsibilities.

James carries his theme of inaction further in "The Beast in the Jungle." A man is convinced something momentous is destined to spring upon him, like a beast, at some point in his life. He and a female friend spend years watching and waiting for it, until she, like a sort of feminine Cyrano de Bergerac, dies, and the man realizes she was what he had anticipated all his life. James insists it was the man's fate to live his entire life without doing anything of importance. Though an atheist, James relies unquestioningly, unironically, on fate to explain the motives and actions of many characters, à la Thomas Hardy. Why God is untenable but Fate ineffable is unclear.

James typically approaches things logically, though. He routinely draws characters not just as they are, but also as they see themselves and how they are perceived by others. Often the crux of a story involves a painful disillusionment, like when the son of a sculptor learns while abroad what true art is, and so discovers that his father's treasured oeuvre is far from it. James' stories often suggest a reflection of what strange delusions we all must live under.

James, like Austen, used his limited sphere of society to illuminate his understanding of universal truths. His meanings occasionally become obscured by his ornate prose, which, owing to merely perfunctory plots, sometimes usurps any meaning entirely, becoming an end in itself. The value in his work lies mainly in the more memorable of his observations and impressions, and in reflecting on what a life barely lived looks like from the all too lucid vantage point of its end.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Really, this book should not have been about Lily Bart. Intriguing, misunderstood, sensitive to the higher planes of thought- maybe. But it's obvious she's the protagonist because she's flawlessly beautiful. Lily's beauty is her defining quality, her currency in the economy of society, the reason her mother loved her, and, as Wharton would have it, justification for her self-destructive tendencies. Lily's friend "poor" Gerty Farish is not so endowed. Forced to fend for herself because she lacks not just money but also that intangibly valuable resource, a pretty face, Gerty nevertheless supports herself, establishes myriad charities, and maintains a joyful, selfless mien throughout the novel. The passages that feature her perspective are welcome respites from the self-centered jeremiads of Lily.

But of course dowdy Gerty appears merely as a contrast to the unparalleled Lily, who is just as financially destitute. Rather than commit herself to the concerns of others, Lily is determined to rise to the forefront of New York's upper class. She fails miserably, but it is a long, slow fall from the pinnacle of society to a dingy room in a boardinghouse. Lily remains adamantly convinced that she can never be happy if she is not ever wallowing in luxury, and this conviction sustains the suspense of her desperate pursuit: it is only because the end is so final that her restoration into the good graces of the upper crust becomes painfully impossible.

Wharton insists that Lily is a product of her environment- that her mercenary matrimonial aims are seen as virtuous by society, that since she was born into comfort and raised in luxury it is only natural she should strive to maintain such. But Wharton would have Lily attuned at the same time to the "republic of the spirit." During a coquettish conversation with Laurence Selden, an aloofly intellectual lawyer, Lily suddenly finds herself face to face with the vapid, meaningless nature of her percuniary pursuit. Selden offhandedly relates his ideal of success- to live unrestrainedly, free from material concerns. Lily is simultaneously enthralled and despondent. "Why do you make the things I have chosen seem hateful to me if you have nothing to give me instead?" she cries. Lily is convinced that she can never be mindless of money if she does not possess a surfeit of it.

And truly, she never can. For, "what she craved and really felt herself entitled to was a situation in which the noblest attitude should also be the easiest," revealing her utter lack of integrity. Lily's love of luxury and her willingness to go to great lengths to secure it show only the shallowness of her character; her inability to forsake the futile chase and take a more meaningful tack, her selfishness. A lovely profile, smooth skin, and a taste for silken sheets do not "entitle" one to material wealth.

Gerty Farish, however, remains steadfast in her universal goodwill and her devotion to her friend, mastering even her unrequited affinity for Laurence Selden in doing all she can for Lily. Gerty is the first one on the scene when Lily is inevitably found dead of a sedative overdose. Compassionate, selfless, determined to do what she could with her lot in life, Gerty was the true heroine. Lily was just another pretty face.

The Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostoevsky

It may be 19th-century Russia, and it may be a world in which a boy can confound his teachers with the question of who founded Troy because he owns the only book in town with the answer, but the intellectuals of Dostoevsky's day struggled with the same fundamental issues that divide society now. Atheistic socialism and progressive empiricism undermine the tradition and authority of religion on a broad social scale, while individuals wrestle personally with these competing worldviews.

In The Brothers Karamazov, this individual drama is personified by the eponymous brothers. Abandoned by their licentious father in their childhood, the boys reach a tentative reconciliation with him as young adults. But he is murdered, and suspicion falls upon Dmitri, the eldest. Dmitri, passionate and impulsive, lives almost entirely to please himself, and this does not help his case during the ensuing trial.

Ivan, the middle brother, has embraced skeptical materialism, intending to get all he can out of life before "dash[ing] the cup to the ground" at thirty. Alexey, the youngest, is thoughtful and congenial, open-hearted, emanating universal goodwill. It is through him that Dostoevsky projects his ideal philosophy of life and living, though for much of the book Alexey merely listens and observes attentively as others attempt to foist their views on him.

Indeed, the zenith of the book's philosophical discourse occurs as Ivan presents his poem in prose form, "The Grand Inquisitor," to Alexey. In a powerful, railing diatribe, Ivan's inquisitor, a Catholic priest, interrogates Jesus. "Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil?" The priest insists that pacifying the people and appeasing them is more loving and merciful than burdening them with free will. "Thou didst not come down [from the cross], for again Thou wouldst not enslave man by a miracle, and didst crave faith given freely...But Thou didst think too highly of men therein, for they are slaves." All the time he speaks Jesus is silent, and when the priest finishes, He rises and gives him a kiss upon his forehead.

In the same way, Alexey remains quiet for much of the novel, interjecting intermittently but mainly watching his family's sordid drama unfold. The concluding chapter, however, represents his longest speech, a benediction to the group of boys he befriends through their classmate Ilusha's fatal sickness. After Ilusha dies. Alexey beseeches the boys to retain the love and sense of comity that they felt for their friend, and he joyfully assures them that they will meet again, if not in this life, then in the next. His buoyant, steadfast sentiments are made more poignant in the wake of the demeaning injustice of his father's murder trial, and of the myriad disavowals of the faith so dear to him that Alexey endures.

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen examines the plight of a ninteenth-century housewife. The text reads fluidly and compellingly, with little action but with much poignant conversation. Despite the brevity of the play and Ibsen's economical style, the characters are intimately drawn, and drastically altered by the end.

Nora, the housewife, feigns a carefree devotion to her husband and children, but she harbors secret obligations. When, years before, her husband Torvald had fallen so ill the doctor insisted he must go abroad, Nora forged her father's signature and obtained a loan so they could travel. By cajoling money from her husband under the pretense of frivolity, she has almost managed to pay her debt. But the man who holds the bond, Krogstad, is fired by his manager, Nora's husband, and so he threatens to expose her forgery, impugning both the couple. Nora confesses to Torvald, privately hoping he would recognize her love for him and take the blame upon himself, but he rages against her instead. They discover Krogstad has sent them the bond, releasing them, and so Torvald apologizes, expecting they can continue on as before. But Nora has discovered that her relationship with him is fundamentally grounded in deception, and so, to discover how to live in uninhibited truth, she leaves.

While it is morally reprehensible for a mother to abandon her family under such a tenuous pretense, the essential theme is very revealing. Ibsen identifies the dilemma that women have spent the better part of the 20th century trying to solve: What is the female's position in society? Nora, sheltered, petted, and coddled all her life, knows only what has been dictated to her. She feels, and rightly so, as any educator would tell you, that she needs to discover knowledge on her own. Unfortunately, once she married, and more importantly, once she bore children, she really relinquished her rights to explore the world on her own. She has a duty to herself as a human being, certainly, but she has a greater duty to her children, who have all the same rights as individuals added to the dependency of juvenility. To marry and to procreate may not have been entirely of her own volition, but that does not negate the responsibility that she bears as a wife and mother.

Discovering oneself and establishing a satisfactory position in society is honorable, but not worth dissolving one's family for. The relationship between parent and child is the most fundamental, organic one in all the world, and to violate it constitutes one of the most damaging, far-reaching sins. Nora needed a measure of self-actualization, but she should have remained with her children to discover it, because that is where she would have found it evetually, if she sought honestly and deeply.

The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Audacity may be Dante's chief virtue. In his ambitious allegory of a trip to the innermost rings of Hell, he dares to rank himself with the great poets of ancient Rome, and with his supreme self-confidence, he succeeds. Guided by Virgil, Dante is privileged to witness the fury of the Inferno without partaking of it. He meets all manner of sinners, from infamous figures of the past to his own recently deceased contemporaries, each one consigned to an eternity of torture specifically tailored to fit his most significant sin. Those who tried to divine the future in life can only look backward in death; murders and wanton warriors eternally drown in a river of blood; sodomites, reflecting the sterility of their acts, continually rove a barren desert.

"[I]t is no easy undertaking," says Dante, "to describe the bottom of the Universe," but he manages it excellently. His illustrations of the underworld are luridly, fantastically detailed. He tells of the endless whirlwind to which the carnal are condemned: "I came to a place stripped bare of every light / and roaring on the naked dark like seas / wracked by a war of winds." As he plumbs deeper into the bowels of the earth, Dante becomes superbly gruesome and fabulous in his rendering of suffering. Enemies gnaw one another's heads; men morph involuntarily into reptiles; Judas Iscariot, Dante's ultimate sinner, is suspended in Satan's mouth at the center of Hell, immobilized in an immense floe of ice.

As an allegory, the symbolism is as multilayered and fathomless as the Inferno itself. One of the more obvious and intriguing figures is Virgil, as the light of human reason. Though he is a pagan predating Christ, Dante implies he can still bring spiritual illumination. Virgil, with his wisdom and discretion, leads Dante safely through the perilous abyss and shows him the way to salvation by ascending with him to the gates of Heaven. He cannot, however, journey with Dante farther, demonstrating that human reason can only get one so far.

"I did not dare descend to his own level / but kept my head inclined, as one who walks / in reverence meditating good and evil." Dante converses with the condemned, but he is careful to maintain a safe distance between himself and them. He derives instruction from their mistakes, learning how better to stay on the path of the "True Way." Through sedulous circumspection, he manages to be in their wretched world, but not of it.

Dante's audaciously lofty poetic aspirations were crucial to the effective execution of such a comprehensive delineation. He itemizes nearly every major sin and assigns appropriate punishments to suit them. It is such a terribly attractive idea, to think that every significant action can be put into a neat theological category, that it is no wonder the Comedy became so widely revered. However, this concept of a linear condemnation, like Purgatory, has little biblical basis. Dante does provide some excellent spiritual insights, though, and his literary merit is undeniable.

Anthem by Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand's oeuvre consists mainly of allegorical fiction that illustrates her philosophy of Objectivism, and Anthem serves as a brief introduction to her canon. The book describes some point in the indeterminate future in which society has progressed to the ultimate extrapolation of universal brotherhood: the word "I" has been abolished from the language. One man escapes, and he discovers that the life he had been forced to live - solely for the common good, not belonging to himself - was a subversion of his true nature, a disgracefully unnatural state.

"[I]t must not matter to us whether we live or die, which is to be as our brothers will it. But we, Equality 7-2521, are glad to be living. If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue." After being punished for trying to introduce a rudimentary form of electricity to his brethren, Equality steals off into the Undiscovered Forest, liberating himself from the despotic dominion of collectivism. He stumbles upon an abandoned house filled with strange books that contain the Forbidden Word that has haunted and eluded him all his life.

The book is simple and concise, containing just enough to adequately address Rand’s thesis: the purpose of existence is the exaltation of the individual. That is the underlying theme of Objectivism, which Rand bases on reason and places in direct opposition to Communism and any less extreme variants thereof. She posits that “[m]an – every man – is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.”

Leonard Peikoff, in his introduction to Anthem, recognizes that the ego as supreme is antithetical to most religions, to which, as an atheist, he found no objection. Unfortunately, without an authority unhampered by the limitations of nature, Objectivism is philosophically incomplete. Whence comes the right of the individual to his pursuit of happiness? Rand was a devoted admirer of the capitalist American political system, considering it the political embodiment of her philosophy. When justifying the existence of the United States, Jefferson attributed this right of the individual to a Creator, as indeed he must have done, for from no other source can such a right originate, least of all from the moral vacuum of atheism.

Moreover, Objectivism champions reason; but how can reason exist outside ourselves without an overarching authority to legitimize and standardize it? We may be able to form a consensus of what is reasonable, but we may all be wrong. Even in Anthem’s dystopia, the World Council, who subdued the masses with their dogmatic decrees, surely believed they were acting reasonably. One man rebelled according to what he thought was right, but who has the authority among us to say whether he was or not? Reason cannot be self-determined.

If one allows for God, however, the worldview becomes much easier to substantiate. Indeed, traces of thought sympathetic to Christianity continually emerge in the book. “It is not good to be different from our brothers,” recites Equality, “but it is evil to be superior to them.” C.S. Lewis echoes these sentiments in “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”: “Their consciousness hardly exists apart from the social atmosphere that surrounds them,” making humans that much easier to subvert and destroy.

But Christianity triumphs the individual only insofar as his worth as a child of God, his distinctions only insofar as they reflect the gifts God has bestowed on him, and his rights only insofar as those God has granted him. Without God, Objectivism is impotent. If a secularist, however, could bring himself to accept the premises of the philosophy, it is there that perhaps its greatest merit could be found – as an atheistic defense of laissez-faire capitalism.

While Objectivism’s “man-worship” in the context of Christianity is fairly nauseating, atheism can have no objection here. Anthem graphically illustrates the nakedness of working for the common good with no moral impetus to do so. Wishful thinking though it may be, secularists would do well to adopt such an outlook and throw their lot in with the capitalist Christian Right.

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

"I began this book with the intention of concealing nothing; that those who liked might have the benefit of perusing a fellow-creature's heart," says Agnes Grey. As the pages of her book unfold, the delightful nuances of Agnes,’ and by association Brontë’s, personality do too. Agnes, daughter of an impoverished clergyman, insists, upon turning eighteen, that she find herself a position as governess to aid the family. She endures nightmarish pupils, haughty employers, and the loneliness of making her way on her own, but she manages to maintain a cheerful demeanor, a cool head, and a firm resolve in God.

Agnes is an excellent, introspective first-person narrator; Brontë 's tone is gratifyingly confidential and, subsequently, strangely modern. Of her sisters, Anne must have been the witty one. When Agnes is summoned by the servant of her capricious charges with "'You're to go to the school-room directly, mum- the young ladies is WAITING!!,'" she comments, "Climax of horror! Actually waiting for their governess!!!"

Agnes is shy and bookish, but her retiring tendencies lend her the steadfastness and circumspection that she relies on. When she inevitably develops a preference for a certain sober-minded curate, she remains beautifully logical even in the midst of her infatuation, refusing to read into any ostensible signals and diligently tempering her ardor with common sense. Watching the flirtations of her pretty student, she wonders "why so much beauty should be given to those who made so bad a use of it, and denied to some who would make it a benefit both to themselves and others," identifying that incessant Brontëan conundrum that Charlotte first identified in Jane Eyre.

Edward Weston, however, cares not for such worldly considerations. The curate pursues Agnes, and the conclusion finds them satisfactorily situated and determined to face any future travails together. They both possess sound religious beliefs. Weston declares his sole purpose in life is to be useful to others. Agnes criticizes a clergyman for his heavy reliance on the writings of the church fathers and his dissuading laypeople from reading the Bible unaided. In an amusing piece of scriptural justification, she uses Philippians 4:8 ("Whatsoever things are good...") to excuse her thinking about Weston as he gives the Sunday morning message.

This book reminded me of why I read. There is nothing quite like opening a book and discovering a complete stranger who is more familiar than many real-life acquaintances. Agnes is reasonable, intelligent, forthright, funny, insightful - I could understand how she thought and why she acted as she did. I could sympathize with her and root for her, and I could be eminently satisfied when she ended happily. Agnes Grey is a straightforward, unadorned, sincere portrait of a sensible, thoughtful girl, and I loved it.

Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink

I loved this book so much that when I was going through it to compile my notes I found myself reading it all over again. Like Freakonomics, it's a case of an expert applying science to real life, conducting dry, straightforward experiments and interpreting them, uncovering fascinating truths about how we eat and why we do so. Wansink is an eminent scientist who sets out to answer questions such as, "Why do we overeat food that doesn't even taste good?" He compiles data from dozens of studies to support his conclusions, writing all the time with a delightful authority and a familiar confidence.

Many of Wansink's hypotheses are intuitive concepts verified by objective investigation. He renames the snacks at a Vacation Bible School and runs out of the "Rainforest Smoothie" - really just vegetable juice. He finds that thinking a food is special or will taste good predisposes one to like it, and makes one more satisified with the overall dining experience.

"[W]e're pretty much clueless about when we've had enough," Wansink says, demonstrating that our stomachs don't keep count. We were designed to crave sweet, salty, fat-filled foods, and to eat as much of them as possible. Even one hundred years ago this penchant would have been a boon to our survival, but our food supply has changed faster than our tastes have, and now rather than perishing from hunger, our lives are cut short by obesity. Clearly our habits need to change.

Wansink identifies many such habits, like the "eating scripts" we automatically follow - when we go to the movies we eat popcorn; when we come home from work we have a snack - that can be altered or circumvented with a little mindfulness. For instance, "people don't eat calories, they eat volume," so using smaller plates and filling them with healthier choices can radically improve one's perception of satiety and overall nutritional intake.

Wansink does not demonize the food industry as others - Morgan Spurlock, most notably - have done. He instead insists that major corporations are out to make money, not fat people, and that they'd be just as happy if we bought their products and then threw them away. Moreover, he says, "We cannot legislate or tax people into eating" healthily. If they want to, they will; if they don't, well, they should have that choice.

Wansink has either an excellent command of the English language or a superb editor. The book has few, if any, typos, a rare achievement for a first edition. His voice is strong and controlled, bolstered by the authority of scientific evidence and tempered by his affability and genuine desire to help people with the discoveries he has made.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Okonkwo is a prominent African tribesman whose world falls apart when Europeans begin to colonize it. Despite his inauspicious childhood, Okonkwo rises to a place of respected authority in his clan through diligent, persistent hard work. He establishes a farm large enough to support three wives and their children. But his eldest son Nwoye does not share his father's devotion to the tribe nor his ambitions to reign in it, and so when Christian missionaries come, Nwoye converts. His father, disgusted, disowns him, and he begins a campaign to drive out the new religion. But Okonkwo is alone in his ardent persecution, and after his murder of an official fails to incite a revolt, he hangs himself.

Okonkwo burns with a fervent loyalty to tradition and position. He accepts unquestioningly the dictates of the elders and disdains any who fall out of line with his ideal of strong, masculine adherence to society and unceasing industry. "He had no patience with unsuccessful men," Achebe says of him. This is his tragic flaw: his inability to cope with progress and unyielding demand for perfection. Achebe writes concisely and decisively. He uses a stripped-down English smattered with African phrases that emphasizes the earthy authenticity of the story. He includes folklore and fables and songs, creating a cultural context. The overall effect is beautiful and mesmerizing.

The arrival of the Christians is the vehicle for Okonkwo's downfall. Achebe details the mistreatment the Africans suffer at the hands of the white soldiers who eventually arrive and he illustrates the deterioration of the natives' culture when they assimilate. But Achebe himself converted to Christianity while living in Africa. His sympathies are evident through Nwoye, when he hears the newcomers preach: "The words of the hymn were like the drops of frozen rain melting on the dry palate of the panting earth." He shows how the Christians abolish the tribal superstitions, accepting the outcasts and rescuing the infant twins clanspeople are under compulsion to abandon in the bush. Achebe's aim seems to be a balanced objectivity.

The book is unavoidably profound. One cannot help but admire the steadfastness of this noble savage and mourn the tragedy of his demise. But his irrationality and unwavering trust in brute strength render him unable to entertain further revelations of truth. Okonkwo was sincere but sincerely wrong, as it were. Achebe maintains respect for the culture while gently denouncing the superstitions of his native Africa.

The American by Henry James

Christopher Newman, lately possessed of a sizeable fortune amassed through years of conscious endeavor in trade in America, decides to throw it all off and go abroad. He has only a vague idea of what he seeks, but what he finds is an enchanting woman who answers his feminine ideal. Madame de Cintré returns his affections, but their engagement is broken by her aristocratic family, who scorn the idea of a common businessman attaining her hand. Newman strives valiantly to win her, but is eventually forced to abandon the matter forever.

Newman is just that - arisen out of obscurity to a self-generated place of prosperity. Easy-going, forthright, warm, congenial, and open, he is a credit to his country. "You take things too coolly," says a European acquaintance. "It exasperates me. And then you are too happy. You have what must be the most agreeable thing in the world, the consciousness of having bought your pleasure beforehand and paid for it." Indeed, he feels, as Americans are wont to do, that most anything can be bought, and in America this is at least true of position. One's origins have little bearing on one's place in society; hard work is virtuous, something to be commended.

But Newman's would-be in-laws take quite the opposite view, living on little else but the glory of their ancient lineage. They shun Newman for his industry while inhabiting a moldering house emblematic of their waning finances. They find Newman's proposal audaciously incomprehensible; Newman is just as incapable of understanding their indignation. "[H]is sense of human equality was not an aggressive taste or an aesthetic theory, but something as natural and organic as a physical appetite which had never been put on a scanty allowance." That his antecedents have any importance to them baffles him.

As Newman later finds, high birth is certainly no indication of high morals. He behaves honorably throughout the degrading ordeal to which his fiancée’s relatives subject him, and he emerges blameless and unscathed. Unfortunately, he also comes out without a wife. Madame de Cintré commits herself to a nunnery to escape the contrivances of her family.

It is too bad that Newman is treated so terribly, for he is a decent protagonist, pleasantly sociable, confident and uninhibited. "He himself was almost never bored, and there was no man with whom it would have been a greater mistake to suppose that silence meant displeasure." He views the Continent with "a placid, fathomless sense of diversion." That world, however, does not look as kindly on him.

The American by Henry James

Christopher Newman, lately possessed of a sizeable fortune amassed through years of conscious endeavor in trade in America, decides to throw it all off and go abroad. He has only a vague idea of what he seeks, but what he finds is an enchanting woman who answers his feminine ideal. Madame de Cintre returns his affections, but their engagement is broken by her aristocratic family, who scorn the idea of a common businessman attaining her hand. Newman strives valiantly to win her, but is eventually forced to abandon the matter forever.

Newman is just that - arisen out of obscurity to a self-generated place of prosperity. Easy-going, forthright, warm, congenial, and open, he is a credit to his country. "You take things too coolly," says a European acquaintance. "It exasperates me. And then you are too happy. You have what must be the most agreeable thing in the world, the consciousness of having bought your pleasure beforehand and paid for it." Indeed, he feels, as Americans are wont to do, that most anything can be bought, and in America this is at least true of position. One's origins have little bearing on one's place in society; hard work is virtuous, something to be commended.

But Newman's would-be in-laws take quite the opposite view, living on little else but the glory of their ancient lineage. They shun Newman for his industry while inhabiting a moldering house emblematic of their waning finances. They find Newman's proposal audaciously incomprehensible; Newman is just as incapable of understanding their indignation. "[H]is sense of human equality was not an aggressive taste or an aesthetic theory, but something as natural and organic as a physical appetite which had never been put on a scanty allowance." That his antecedents have any importance to them baffles him.

As Newman later finds, high birth is certainly no indication of high morals. He behaves honorably throughout the degrading ordeal to which his fiancée’s relatives subject him, and he emerges blameless and unscathed. Unfortunately, he also comes out without a wife. Madame de Cintre commits herself to a nunnery to escape the contrivances of her family.

It is too bad that Newman is treated so terribly, for he is a decent protagonist, pleasantly sociable, confident and uninhibited. "He himself was almost never bored, and there was no man with whom it would have been a greater mistake to suppose that silence meant displeasure." He views the Continent with "a placid, fathomless sense of diversion." That world, however, does not look as kindly on him.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

If Little Women were a comestible, it would be like milk and honey: wholesome, mild, and nourishing, to be sure; but sweet, so sweet, almost unbearably so; and moreover, replete with biblical connotations. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are the March girls, and Alcott, drawing on her childhood, chronicles a turbulent year in their lives. Their father is a Union soldier in the Civil War, and the family's finances are precarious, so the girls and their mother manage as best they can while maintaining their moral fortitude and love and commitment to each other.

The book is soaked with the flavor of the 1800s, evoking an era in which a girl could reach the age of sixteen without ever having looked at a boy as more than a friend, and then at seventeen become engaged. But though Marmee and Papa take the traditionally staid views of propriety in relationships, their position on women's rights is strikingly progressive. They accept the necessity of sending the older girls to work, and encourage useful endeavor. When Papa returns home, he commends Meg: "I remember a time when this hand was white and smooth...this hardened palm has earned something better than blisters."

Altogether the girls are excellent examples of solid Protestant work ethic. They assume their duties as cheerfully as they can, and though they err from time to time, they are quick to amend their follies. They entertain themselves well and get along most of the time, performing plays, hosting clubs, and assembling newspapers. Even their leisure is admirable. When asked about her plans for summer vacation, Jo replies, "'I've laid in a heap of books, and I'm going to improve my shining hours reading on my perch in the old apple-tree.'"

Alcott based Jo on herself, reflecting her penchant for literature. The novel is full of educated allusions, from Shakespeare to Dickens to Thackeray. But it is apparent that the author was rather young when she wrote the book. Many passages suffer from facile sentence constructions and a wordiness awkward even for the time in which they were written. Alcott seems to be afraid of "said;" one finds, in the first chapter alone, to wit: "grumbled," "sighed," "added," "cried," "began," "advised," "returned," "observed," "sang," "continued," "answered," "announced," and "exclaimed."

Much of Little Women reads like a primer. The tone tends toward didactic and the moral lessons are quite overt. The girls face adversity, but they are steadfast, and everything comes right in the end. Characters are developed admirably. The story is exceedingly instructive, suitably nutritious for the children it was obviously written for, but perhaps too treacly for the likes of me.

Silence by Shusaku Endo

Another recommendation by Will, the father of the boy I watch, this book was just as incongruous with what I'd think he'd like, though it was utterly removed from the former, The Bone People. A Portuguese priest travels to Japan in the 1600s to minister to the persecuted believers there. He is captured and forced to renounce his faith by stepping on a portrait of Christ. Throughout his Japanese sojourn he struggles with the seeming silence of God, but after he apostatizes he realizes that God had been with him all the time.

"It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful," says Rodrigues, the priest, "the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt." When Rodrigues meets the Japanese Christians, he is struck by the squalor of their lives and their desperate existence. But despite their poverty they manage to feed and harbor him until he is betrayed to the persecuting authorities, who are ardently striving to eradicate any traces of what they view as the religion of the West. The Japanese officials refuse to believe their people can comprehend Christianity in its Western context, insisting that any professing Christians there adhere only to their own corrupted understanding of their native Buddhism.

Rodrigues does not see them this way. Upon observing a Japanese believer's poignant rendition of a hymn as he is martyred, Rodrigues reflects, "Life in this world is too painful for these Japanese peasants. Only by relying on 'the temple of Paradise' have they been able to go on living." There are no noble savages here, no blissful ignorants. Christianity achieved something for these people that their indigenous teaching lacked.

Rodrigues publicly renounces his faith in a complex inner struggle that leads paradoxically to a rejuvenation of his devotion to his God. "He loved him now in a different way from before. Everything that had taken place until now had been necessary to bring him to this love." It is as if when stripped of his trappings of Catholicism - the priesthood, the sacred veneration of icons - Rodrigues discovers the heart of Christianity and depth of God's love and mercy for him.

The novel was translated from the Japanese, and the writing was as pure and unadorned as haiku. I don't know that I've ever read a work of Japanese literature, and I'm pleased my initial foray was a book so sympathetic toward my own beliefs. Endo was a Christian, after all, and he believed that if Christianity wasn't true in Japan, then it wasn't true anywhere.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

So one day Will, the father of the little boy I babysit, picked me up as per usual, and, upon his noticing the books that accompanied me, we began talking about what he had read in college. He told me he had loved his World Lit class, and when we got to his house he pulled this book off a shelf, saying, "I've read this three times. It's really great; it's about these people in New Zealand who go to this tower where this woman lives and they're all kind of troubled and they sort of help each other...well, you'll just have to read it." So I did.

Kerewin Holmes is a part-Maori self-sufficient financially independent painter-reader-writer living in a custom-built tower on the New Zealand coast. One day she comes home and discovers a thin, blond, mute boy in her living room. She finds that his name is Simon, and she contacts his father Joe and returns him to his home. Joe invites her over for dinner the next night, she reciprocates, and soon all their lives are intertwined. Kerewin learns that Joe adopted Simon after he washed up on shore one night, the lone survivor of a shipwreck, and that Joe's wife and son died shortly after, leaving the two alone. She also finds that, when drunk, Joe punishes Simon severely, though Simon feels he deserves it and so it just makes him love his father more. But one night Joe's blows send him to the hospital. Months of soul-searching, healing, and repentance find them all reconciled in the end.

The book is altogether strikingly individual. Literate allusions abound in the mind of Kerewin, who is well-read and familiar with French and Latin, as well as fluent in English and Maori. She has a keen ear for language and sound that becomes apparent as the sometimes stream-of-consciousness narrative follows her mental rabbit-paths of rhyme and word-play. She is clever, though at times a little too precious, like when she refers to herself as "Sherlock" - her last name is Holmes - and marvels that she never came up with that before. The distinct culture of New Zealand plays a major part in the individuality of the novel. Maori words are interspersed between the audibly accented English: "Berloody cheeky, mate."

An outré spirituality harbored by the characters pervades the book. They combine Maori spritualism with a brand of missionary Christianity and puerile superstitious mysticism in a confusing conglomeration of beliefs. Kerewin keeps a book of religious writings that includes Buddhist and Hindu texts among her own musings, as well as select books of the Bible. Simon sees auras around people, and Joe is visited by an ostensibly prophetic old Maori chief.

Though things eventually come right, Simon and Joe's relationship forms a terribly sick situation, and it makes the book an uncomfortable one. Kerewin's cold seclusion, too, is unnatural and undesirable, though also rectified by the denouement. The book is engrossing, but not necessarily something I'd want to read more than once. So why did Will - Cubs fan, mathematics major, Mac enthusiast, Guitar Hero champ - read it thrice?

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Return of the Native and The Mayor of Casterbridge may both have been as gloomy as the English moors, but Hardy contrived happy endings for at least some of the characters. In Tess, however, Hardy declines any pretense of nicety, submitting his hapless protagonists to increasingly tragic circumstances, culminating in a bitter denouement.

Tess, ill-advised ingenue of the English countryside, is raped by a licentious aristocrat, Alec D'Urberville, and the resulting infant dies shortly after its birth. Tess seeks employment as a dairymaid miles from her home, to escape the scorn of her neighbors and earn money for her impoverished family. A young well-to-do man, Angel Clare, falls in love with her and convinces her, despite her misgivings, to marry him. On their wedding night, Clare confesses to her a night of debauchery in the city, and so, assured, Tess reveals to him her similar past. But Clare is distraught by her revelation, and leaves her.

D'Urberville returns to pursue her in this vulnerable state, and she passively relinquishes herself to him in her hopelessness when he offers to provide for her impoverished family. Clare, repentant, finds them together. Tess kills her lover, rejoins her husband for a few weeks of pleasure, and is subsequently discovered and hanged.

Hardy's prescient pessimism anticipates, or perhaps ushers in, the effects of Darwinism on Western beliefs in the 20th century. Clare, son of an evangelical minister, professes an appreciation of Christianity but denies the verity of its supernatural elements. Tess readily assumes his "rational" views, having always harbored a faith tenuous at best. D'Urberville undergoes a radical conversion halfway through the novel, becoming a traveling preacher. But a brush with Tess, and her iteration of her husband's philosophies is enough to kill his emotional Christianity. Upon renouncing his beliefs, he renews his assault of Tess. "'O why didn't you keep your faith, if the loss of it has brought you to speak to me like this!'" she cries to him.

What Tess doesn't understand is that it just cannot be that way. One cannot have a standard without authority behind it; there is no moral code without God. Clare, full of ideals and clearly endowed with a sense of right and wrong, expects Tess to forgive him his pre-marital dalliance without any qualms, but finds himself unable to to the same for her. He later accepts her companionship, though she has added to her offenses murder. His self-fashioned ethics are startlingly inconsistent.

Hardy purports to write an indictment of ineffable Fate, but all he truly demonstrates is the futility of relativism.

Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoevsky

I avoided this book for a long time because I have mixed feelings about Russian literature, and didn't want to commit myself to a long book I might not enjoy. Chekhov's profundity was entirely lost on me, and I only got two-thirds of the way through War and Peace before the people at the Jeopardy! tryouts told me to just stop and watch the movie instead. But I liked Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, and Tolstoy redeemed himself for me with The Death of Ivan Ilych. I'd heard Crime and Punishment had a redemptive ending, and so, after chastising myself for balking at a novel because of its length - "Since when am I one to pass on a book because it's too long?" - I checked it out.

It turns out I didn't want it to end. I felt nothing lost in translation here; the writing was forceful and immediate. Dostoevsky is a superb storyteller: he infuses the plot with action right from the beginning, honing in on the key players of his drama and sticking with them. Rodion Romanov Raskolnikov is an impoverished young man who, amidst the turmoil of mid-19th century Russia, puts his pet theory of moral relativism into practice by murdering and robbing an old moneylender and her sister. The novel follows Raskolnikov as he tries to make sense of what he has done, detailing his subsequent states of mind - hallucination, recklessness, rationalization, indifference, and finally remorse and repentance.

It is primarily a novel of the mind, and Raskolnikov's inner dialogue is fascinating. He, even at his most irrational, is eminently believable as he discovers just what a "miserable wretch" he truly is. The personalities of his friends, enemies, and family are just as engaging. Russia seems so remote, but the story is so universal. Raskolnikov realizes his depravity, and like Ivan Ilych, asks himself the essential questions: "What should he strive for? To live in order to exist?"

Raskolnikov's salvation is borne by Sofya Marmeladov, whose steadfast devotion to him brings about his final restoration. "There was a New Testament under his pillow...It was hers, the very one from which she had read to him the raising of Lazarus." Like Lazarus, Raskolnikov returns to light and life after being submerged in death and darkness.

Dostoevsky effectively denounces the atheism of 19th-century Russian intellectuals with his masterful, deft pen. His novel is a spellbinding account of a criminal's psychological plight, the striking image of a destitute man ensnared by his own misguided ideals. Raskolnikov mocks religion and the devout, ensconcing himself in jaded, indifferent disbelief. It is not until the very last page that Dostoevsky gives him his answer to the eternal question; the answer to the eternal question.

The Best Short Stories of O. Henry

I was making my way methodically through the fiction section of our little local library recently, and when I got to the "O" section, I paused. In between the O'Haras and the O'Neills, I found an O. Henry. I sincerely hope a librarian did not put it there. I returned the book to its proper place, where, coincidentally, I had just minutes before selected a volume by the same author.

I've run into Henry's stories periodically throughout school, in various anthologies, and I've yet to read a piece of his that isn't thoroughly enjoyable. He manages his medium deftly, suffusing his abbreviated narratives with easily grasped characters and adorning his denouements with perpetually unpredicatable irony. Irony is of course Henry's hallmark; he is the father of the unexpected twist. His stories are essentially all about the experience of reading them - the bulk of each serves mainly as the setting for the jewel of the concluding line.

Suspense propels most of the plots. But it is not solely the suspense over what is to happen next; often it involves discovering why the story is worth reading at all. Many of Henry's tales appear quite mundane at the outset; they proceed pleasantly but not extraordinarily, and so the payoff for the reader does not occur until that very last line. Much like a Hitchcock movie, the plot in its entirety comes full circle only at the end.

But that's not to say the beginnings and the middles of the stories don't offer up their own merits. Henry writes with a garish verbosity whose audacity would disgrace a lesser writer, but which in Henry's hands becomes exciting and ultimately endearing, as he expertly wields words like "eleemosynary" and "peripatetic." He assumes the dialects of Americans as varied as his surprise endings, from New Yorkers to Texans to Mississippians. He procures excellent metaphors: "They had the appearance of men to whom life had appeared as a reversible coat - seamy on both sides."

Henry treats his characters tenderly, sympathizing with the plights of his hoboes and shopgirls, not too stingy to refuse them a few happy endings. Irony is invariably cruel to the ficitional pawn of fate, but Henry often strives to lessen the sting. In his classic "The Gift of the Magi," he lauds his innocent protagonists: "Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest."

Henry manages to be both sardonic and sweet in a delightful blend of irony and sentimentality. It's a pity that misguided library shelf stacker had apparently never heard of him.

A Death in the Family by James Agee

It sounds depressing, and it is, but it is also quite beautiful. Agee illustrates a young family’s noble struggle to comprehend the loss of their husband and father and move on. Jay crashes his automobile on his way home late one night, and he is killed instantly. His death devastates all his relations - that a young father, who worked out of his native rural poverty to attain a respected place in the middle class, who had recently conquered his alcoholism and reconciled himself to his wife, who had two tiny children to raise - that he should be alive one moment and gone forever the next, overwhelms them.

Agee's voice, as in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, is subdued but arresting. He writes in a mesmerizing cadence of prose, an unparalleled lilting song; his works are a melancholy ode to humanity. He describes his characters and their world in furious detail, invoking all the senses and imbuing the novel with a shocking degree of authenticity. His portrayals of sounds ring in the ears with unsurpassed verisimilitude. His is a severe but thoroughly accurate realism.

The intensely realistic nature of the book is due, no doubt, to its autobiographical origins. Agee's own father died in the same manner as Jay when Agee was six; Jay's six-year-old son Rufus bears Agee's middle name. Rufus' bewilderment and anguish in the wake of the events form some of the most poignant elements in the book; Agee's careful delineation of a young boy's thoughts surely bespeaks his own recollections.

The book must have functioned, therefore, as a tribute to his father. For Agee's work transcends reality, assuming a sort of symbolically charged air. Under his pen real life becomes loftier, more poetic, more important, drenched in deep emotion; fervently grounded in practical matters but simultaneously reaching for ethereal heights. He permits some of his characters a belief in the supernatural, and is on the whole sympathetic towards them, allowing them to cry out to God with the utmost sincerity. Spirituality pervades his work.

The novel inevitably leads one to ponder mortality, as all deaths do. In a society in which accidental deaths are increasingly rarer, and life spans are continually lengthening, these times of reflection are not as prevalent. Agee's book, then, in its ferocious veracity and breathless immediacy, functions as that reminder, urging self-evaluation on the reader: What would I do if someone close to me died? Am I ready to die?

Agee himself died rather young, at 45, of a heart attack. He never saw his book published and so did not enjoy the acclaim of the entirely deserved Pulitzer Prize that it would bring him.

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Henry James, in sketching his Portrait, takes a young, idealistic woman and explores the detour her fortunes take when she inherits a fortune from her uncle. Isabel Archer's aunt proposes to escort her across Europe after her father dies. Isabel charms her relations and so finds herself financially independent upon her uncle's decease. Isabel is largely self-educated, having spent much of her adolescence steeped in books; from literature she extracted a varied brew of self-aware knowledge and untempered opinions. "She had a theory that it was only on this condition that life was worth living; that one should be one of the best, should be conscious of a fine organization (she could not help knowing her organization was fine), should move in a realm of light, of natural wisdom, of happy impulse, of inspiration gracefully chronic."

Isabel has lots of theories, in fact, and her newfound riches allow her to execute them. "She always returned to her theory that a young woman whom after all everyone thought clever should begin by getting a general impression of life." Isabel embarks upon her European tour. While she considers marriage important, she strives to achieve a destiny and identification without having to marry advantageously. She refuses the hands of several worthy suitors, but she is eventually captivated by a destitute widower whose good taste, veneer of decorum, ostensibly humble existence, and good favor by Madame Merle, a friend of Isabel's, do much to recommend him to her. Defying the misgivings of her relatives, she weds him.

Though she is years in discovering it, Isabel's marriage is solely mercenary on her husband's part. When a wedding occurs in the very middle of a book, depend upon it to be unfortunate. Isabel learns that Madame Merle is the illegitimate mother of her husband's daughter, and the motive behind Merle's encouragement of the courtship becomes apparent to her. Distraught over this discovery, Isabel flees to the bedside of her dying cousin, whose deteriorating health adds to her agony. After his funeral, an old suitor beseeches Isabel to run away with him and salvage some sort of happiness out of life, but she steadfastly refuses and returns home to a husband who despises her.

Isabel makes the right decision. The climactic scene is deeply reminiscent of Jane Eyre's refusal of Mr. Rochester; both women decline the fervent pleas of men to forsake their scruples and disregard the eyes of the world. Isabel's ideals may not have prevented her from being deceived when the correct path was obscure, but they allowed her to choose wisely when the decision was clear.

The story elicits many moral lessons, though from what I understand James was averse to viewing fiction in such a didactic manner. Money often causes more problems than it solves. Consult one's family in matters of romance; their sensibilities are not clouded by the illusions of infatuation. Accept responsibility for the byproducts of mistakes. Have an open mind, but not one too open. Take care as to whom one invites into confidence; even the least likely can harbor ulterior motives.

James retains vestiges of the traditional view of women as inferior. When Isabe speaks in illogical tautology, it is considered characteristic of gender. "'Because it's not,' Isabel said femininely. "I know it's not.'" And later, James remarks, "She knew how to think- an accomplishment rare in women." At the risk of disparaging my gender just to make myself look better, I'm sometimes half inclined to agree.

James' writing involves a delightful dearth of symbolism, making the book eminently accessible. He desires solely to analyze a young woman's fate when her free will is enhanced by pecuniary freedom, and the result is blatantly apparent. Stocked with a surfeit of self-assurance, she is easily ensnared, and, along with her bookish ideals, is beset by the terrible actuality of reality. But she is not vanquished entirely.

The Professor by Charlotte Bronte

The 19th-century British authoress is a paradox- Austen and the Brontes, save Charlotte, never married, and even Charlotte not until she was 39, and then only a year before she died. But all their respective works deal almost exclusively with romance. It lends their books a poignant irony.

The Professor is so plainly autobiography combined with wistful daydreaming that I could only read it detachedly. A young, intelligent, uncommitted British man, William Crimsworth, seeks employment abroad in Brussels. He becomes a schoolteacher, falls in love with an impoverished student of his, marries her, runs a school with her for some years, and eventually settles comfortably in England. As a student and teacher herself in Brussels, Charlotte undoubtedly must have developed an attachment, or dreamed of one, at least, and decided to transform her unfulfilled hopes into a novel.

William has setbacks and obstacles, but they are systematically taken care of. Crimsworth is essentially faultless- studious, scrupulous, religious, fastidious, not too good-looking. He is more or less destined to succeed in life. His love, Frances, is much the same, but being a woman at that period of time, attempting to maintain a level of self-sufficient decency, her chances at happiness before Crimsworth entered the picture were not as certain. Some of the most telling passages occur when Crimsworth discusses with his now-wife what she would have become if he had not married her. "Had I been an old maid," she avers, "I should have spent existence in efforts to fill the void...and died weary and disappointed, despised and of no account, like other single women."

The book lacks the breadth and scope of Charlotte's masterpiece, Jane Eyre, and it contains many little oddities besides. Crimsworth has an inordinate confidence in physiognomy, often describing his acquaintances solely in terms of the relation of their features to their personalities. Many conversations in the novel are carried on entirely in French, obviously intended for an audience better educated than myself. Both Crimsworth and Frances denounce Catholicism with a vigor rarely seen in novels of romance.

Male first-person protagonists drawn by female writers are overwhelmingly idealized and hardly believable. Bronte's hero complies with this, exhibiting a markedly effeminate sensibility towards life. The timid but steadfast young woman and the dashing lover come to rescue her found in Jane Eyre are prefigured here, but Frances and Crimsworth are not nearly as compelling or as vivid as Jane and Rochester.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

Robert Pirsig chronicles his intellectual journey into the essence of belief and existence within the scope of a cross-country motorcycle trip. Most of the story is related by his present self, who refers to the person he was before being treated in an insane asylum, as "Phaedrus." Phaedrus, Pirsig tells us, made a discovery tantamount to Copernicus' reconfiguration of the universe, and he, the present narrator, is here to explain it all.

Phaedrus found that by looking at the world not as a duality of subject and object only, but as a triune format in which subject and object are striving towards what he terms "Quality," or ultimate reality, he could reconcile himself to the idea of existence and achieve peace of mind. From this principle Pirsig reasons that the revered Ancients, Plato and Socrates and Aristotle, were mistaken, and the Sophists, whom the great philosophers derided, were in fact closer to the truth, that their Virtue was synonymous with his Quality, their pre-Socratic striving for "arete," excellence, more in line with the way things should be. He descends into an equation of Eastern mysticism, ultimately ending with an inconclusive attempt at transubstantiation. He partially bases his theories on the "mythos," the collective awareness of mankind that we are all privy to, almost echoing Chesterton when he said, "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors."

When Pirsig equates Dharma and the Buddha with his Quality, he loses credibility. The ancient Eastern texts have no authority; they have themselves only to offer. It is as if he fixates on them merely because they are not Western, because they are not heir to the legacy of those mistaken Greek philosophers.

Pirsig reasons for pages and pages, and though his overarching philosophy is faulty, he does have some good minor points. He takes up with the scientific method, insisting that there are an infinite number of hypotheses for any given experiment, and so the selection of the hypotheses that may be correct cannot be done scientifically, that is, in some objective textbook format; rather, the selection invariably involves a sort of subconscious art that comes from the perpetual reach for Quality.

"It is the quest of this special classic beauty, the sense of the harmony of the cosmos, which makes us choose the facts most fitting to contribute to this harmony. It is no the facts but the relation of things that results in the universal harmony that is the sole objective reality." That harmony speaks to the central drive of humanity. In literature, one continually seeks cohesion, threads of continuity, recurring symbolism- harmony. In life, one looks for meaning, purpose, reason, to make sense of it all- to bring the universe into harmony. His is a valid observation.

When extending his concept of Quality into real life, Pirsig infuses his esoterism with a more pragmatic air. "It is the little, pathetic attempts at Quality that kill. The plaster false fireplace in the apartment, shaped and waiting to contain a flame that can never exist." He identifies a feeling I have harbored for quite a while but only on vague, indefinite terms.