Norwegian Wood is about a quintessentially normal and likable guy named Toru Watanabe who has a thing for women who range between eccentric and completely off their rockers. The story is delivered as a flash back as an adult Watanabe mulls over his college days, during which all of these relationships took place.
At the center of his various relationships is his love for Naoko, who had been the girlfriend of Watanabe’s high school best friend until said friend committed suicide. Naoko is a beautiful girl in a fragile state–haunted by her former boyfriend’s suicide and probably a little unstable of her own nature. On the other hand, Watanabe begins a platonic relationship with another girl, Midori, who is sane, but a bit of a wild child and not devoid of her own neuroses. While, of the two, Midori is better for him, he cannot bring himself to take their relationship to the next level as long as Naoko is around—even though Naoko is institutionalized. A third woman, Hatsumi, is dating Watanabe’s college best friend, and she seems to represent the sweet, stable woman who Watanabe doesn’t seem to attract. Incidentally, Hatsumi eventually commits suicide. [Warning: this book is rife with suicide and probably has the highest rate of suicide of any novel I’ve ever read—fortunately it’s a relatively small cast of characters and so this amounts to only a few deaths.]
The character development and story are both excellent. Though I will say the character of Naoko is underdeveloped, but I suspect that is on purpose. I couldn’t tell whether Watanabi had reason to be so madly in love with her, or whether that was his curse. (I suspected the latter.) In contrast, Midori is tremendously likable, and– despite her kookiness–she is the kind of person almost anybody would be drawn to at least as a friend—though some might find it trying to be in an extended romantic relationship with her.
Murakami intersperses humor into this book with its overall somber tone. A lot of this is in the form of dialogue between Watanabe and Midori, or Watanabe and Reiko (Reiko is Naoko’s roommate at the institution and is an older woman for whom Watanabe holds a measure of affection as well.) (Among my favorite quotes is [paraphrasing], “I don’t like being alone. No one likes being alone. I just hate being disappointed.”) These flourishes of humor both add to the readability and the realism of the story.
I’d recommend this book for anyone who enjoys literary fiction. Not that it’s hard to digest literary fiction. It’s very readable, but if you need something beyond realism to hold your attention, this is probably not the book for you. Unlike some of Murakami’s speculative fiction, this work is quite centered in realism. [Though, it does have a fairly high body count.]
There was a movie adaptation made a few years back. I haven’t seen it, and so couldn’t tell how closely it follows the novel, but from the trailer suspect it’s as close as can be expected.
The Moor’s Last Sigh tells the tale of three generations of an Indian family that built its fortune in the spice trade. This isn’t the type of book that would usually float to the top of my stack. I read it because I was traveling to Kochi (Cochin), and it came recommended because much of the first part of the book is set there. (The same recommendation might be received by someone traveling to Mumbai because the latter half of the book is set in that city; granted, there are a lot more stories set in Mumbai [Bombay] than Kochi.) Ultimately, I was pleasantly surprised by this book, despite its soap opera like tone.
The book does read like a soap opera, at least until it gets into the narrating character’s story. There are strong women characters in this male-dominated environment of an Indian family business, though they tend to fall into the categories of “petty bitch” or “prima donna” or both. In the first generation there is a matriarchal character who dominates the family by manipulation and cruelty. In the second generation, the female lead—a strong-spirited, independent artist—falls in love with a Jewish employee of the family. Those familiar with marriage as practiced by the Indian elite will recognize how this inter-sect wedding with an underling might result in no small grief. The resulting marriage produces two female children and a boy. The latter would be nothing but a source of bliss, but for a birth defect that results in a malformed arm. While his mother smothers him with love and attempts to display a progressive spirit that’s beyond biases against such infirmities, under the surface there is the need to come to grips with the fact that handicapped children aren’t supposed to happen in high-caste families. The man with the infirmity is the narrator and overall protagonist of the book. He—as seems inevitable—will eventually fall for a woman of which his mother does not approve.
Beyond the soap opera pettiness, there are genuine intrigues that unfold in the latter half of the book. However, the pettiness of narcissistic people is the root of the protagonist’s ultimate trial.
While Rushdie builds characters in the manner we expect of literary fiction, he doesn’t abandon story. There is a narrative arc that unfolds over the course of the novel. Surprises are revealed and twists unfold.
This is the first Rushdie novel I’ve read. I’ve always intended to read The Satanic Verses to see what all the hullaballoo was about, and the readability of this work makes me even more interested in following through. You know a writer has to be good to inspire a country to take out a hit on him.
I’d recommend this for more than just people visiting Kochi or Mumbai—though it will be particularly interesting for those who are. If you’re interested in the lifestyles of the rich and famous in India more generally, you’ll find this work enlightening. In general, it will appeal to those who like their literary fiction with a bit of a storyline—and if you like the low drama of bitchiness, all the more so.
The Naïve and the Sentimental Novelist is Orhan Pamuk’s theory of the novel, and is based on a series of lectures given by the Turkish Nobel Laureate in 2009. It’s a brief work, consisting of less than 200 pages written across six chapters plus an epilogue. Pamuk explores just a handful of concepts, but he elaborates on each with examples from literature. Having said that, Pamuk has the novelist’s gift for strategic ambiguity, and there are some ideas–such as the “secret center of the novel”–for which the author leaves much for the reader to interpret.
In the first chapter, Pamuk explores what occurs in the mind of a reader as they consume a novel. He proposes nine mental activities that one engages in over the course of reading a novel. These activities range from the essence of reading, such as observing scene and narrative arc, to less essential acts such as self-congratulatory narcissism. A central theme is the novel as a visual medium in that the mind converts words into images and those images are what are experienced in reading. The final action is search for the novel’s “secret center,” an important element of Pamuk’s theory and the topic of the book’s final chapter.
The title subjects are also introduced in the first chapter, i.e. naïve and sentimental novelists. Pamuk borrows this concept from Schiller, who used it to describe poets. The naïve novelist writes spontaneously and with confidence that he or she is capturing reality in the work. The sentimental novelist is much more uneasy about the degree that his work will convey something true. While an oversimplification, this idea corresponds somewhat to the much more commonly known division of writers into outliners and non-outliners, i.e. some writers can’t get started until they’ve done extensive research and outlining, but others begin with—at most—a vague outline in their heads and let the words stream from deep within.
The second chapter discusses the reader’s inability to accept that the novel is complete fiction—and, conversely, what truths a novelist reveals in the process of writing a purely fictitious work. (It should be noted that while Pamuk refers throughout to the “novel,” he’s really referring to the “literary novel.” Much of what he has to say isn’t relevant for either commercial or genre fiction.) Pamuk points out that it’s not just gullible yokels who believe that what he’s writing is autobiographical. Sophisticated readers who work in the publishing industry have been known to think he is living the life of one of his characters. On the other hand, when an avid reader suggested that they knew Pamuk so well because they had read all his books, he found himself being embarrassed. This embarrassment wasn’t because he felt they had learned any details of his life, but that they had developed a psychological insight.
The next chapter is on character, plot, and time. As one would expect, character is the most important and substantially addressed topic. I say that not because it’s listed first, but because we are talking about literary fiction—a medium in which character is of the utmost importance and plotting is loose to optional. However, the portion of the chapter that I found most interesting was the question of time in novel. Time stretches, compresses, and can bounce non-linearly in a novel. The protagonist’s time is on display in the novel, and that can be done artfully or not.
The fourth chapter is the one that most deeply delves into the topic of novel as a visual media, one which is more closely related to painting that to the media to which the novel is more frequently compared. Here he divides novelists not into the naïve and the sentimental, but into visual versus verbal writers. Pamuk suggests that the novel is a series of frozen moments as opposed to a continuous running of time—and thus its connection to paintings. Of course, Pamuk was a painter before being a novelist, and thus may be more prone to see that connection than most
The penultimate chapter is a comparison of novels to museums. No two things might seem farther apart at first blush, but a museum is a themed collection of artifacts that hopefully serve to tell a story—story here being used not as fiction but as a narrative that could contain fact, fiction, or mythology. This discussion really continues on the theme of the visual aspect of the novel. It suggests that those artifacts that are seen or manipulated in a novel convey a great deal of what the author wants to get across and help to create a more real fictional world. Pamuk elaborates on the connection by using three points to connect museums and novels that are all related by pride.
The final chapter elucidates the “center” of the novel. This is a concept that Pamuk has written around since the beginning of the book without providing a clear conceptualization. The first line of the last chapter defines the center as: “…a profound opinion or insight about life, a deeply embedded point of mystery, whether real or imagined.” The idea of a center, we are told, separates literary fiction from genre / commercial fiction. Readers and authors of genre fiction may find themselves becoming miffed with Pamuk for saying that such works either don’t have a center or have one that’s painfully easily found. He does make explicit exceptions for works by Philip K. Dick and Stanislaw Lem, and one would expect that works of speculative fiction by the likes of Vonnegut, Murakami, and LeGuin would meet his approval as well. However, the presence of a tight story arc—one of the factors that makes work salable—is part of the reason genre fiction tends to have a readily discovered center. For Pamuk, the name of the game is writing a work that has a center that isn’t easily discovered, but neither is so deeply hidden as to remain forever beyond the grasp of most readers. He suggests the novel should be a puzzle, which is solved to reveal the center.
The epilogue includes some autobiographical insight and elaboration on what Pamuk was attempting to convey in this work.
I’d recommend this book for writers as well as serious readers of novels. Obviously, it’s well-written, but beyond that it offers insights that make the reader do some of the work—just what Pamuk proposes a novelist should do.
“What’s the ‘Rabbit’s Foot?'” “I don’t know, but I’m going to shoot her in the head if you don’t give it to me.” Source: Paramount
Critics often bemoan the effectiveness of MacGuffins. A “MacGuffin” is an object so intrinsically valuable that people are willing to kill for it, die for it, or chase each other across the universe for it… and this is the important bit…without knowing precisely why said object is so valuable. In other words, it’s a plot device designed to propel plots forward that would have no reason to advance otherwise. Its exact characteristics are unimportant, and sometimes even its general characteristics remain unrevealed.
Prime examples from the cinema include “the case” from Pulp Fiction, the “Maltese Falcon” from the same-named movie, the “one ring” from Lord of the Rings, the sword “Destiny” from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the “Rabbit’s Foot” from Mission Impossible III, the “Tesseract” from The Avengers, or “Genesis” from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
So, why would people kill, die, or chase after something that they didn’t understand? That’s what the aforementioned critics say, but I have my own theory as to why MacGuffins work well and frequently. MacGuffins work because people are used to spending their lives chasing something that they don’t precisely understand. Call it bliss or legacy or a missing part of oneself. If one spends one’s life chasing after a key that may or may not achieve one’s desired goal, it would be hypocritical to not have sympathy for characters who do the same.
This book was listed in one of those “500 Books One Must Read” lists. Maybe it was “1,001 Must-Read Books.” However large the number, I think it was wrongly included. But it was free in e-book form (or nearly so) and so I figured: “I love free and I like edgy, so what’s not to enjoy.” Besides, this book has been banned many places around the world and there’s nothing that makes me want to read a book like it being banned. Plus, how many authors have such profound impact on the language as to have their names raised from that status of proper noun to common noun and adjective (the Marquis de Sade being from whence the word sadism, or “delight in cruelty,” is derived.)
Now the natural inclination of people seeing the uncomplimentary fashion in which I present this novel will be to think that I’m just a vanilla guy who found the work morally objectionable and that tarnished my view. It’s true that the scat, pedophilia, rape, and—in the latter chapters—homicidal mania rampant throughout the book are not my cup of tea. I, therefore, may not be able to convince you that I could have found the book appealing if it presented the same content in a more skillful manner. [I can’t imagine such a book being “enjoyable,” but I can imagine one that would be “engrossing.”]
However, I intend to convince you that there is a great deal that is unappealing about this book that has nothing to do with the subject matter. I firmly believe that, regardless of one’s ability to stomach the substantive content, one will still find the book to be an utter disappointment. [It should be noted that many people will find the book is more effective in the horror genre than the erotica genre—which isn’t to say that it succeeds in either.]
The synopsis is that four wealthy and prominent men take a harem of 46 individuals (boys, girls, men, and women) to a remote retreat to both have their way with them and, ultimately, snuff most of them out. The four men spend their time listening to tales of debauchery and sadism as told by a couple of prostitutes and then emulating the acts in the aforementioned stories.
Now, you may say, “What would keep 46 people from overwhelming four men—rich and powerful as they may be—and regaining their freedom?” Well, that’s the first problem with the book. It’s true that many of the victims aren’t adults, but enough are to make a rebellion workable. We are never told why this should work, and in this way the book is just a bunch of crude juvenile fantasies that fail the credulity test. A Bishop or President tells someone to drink acid or kill their own kin, and we are just supposed to accept that they would do it without question. The book sets up no tension. It really is the fantasy realm of an impotent man with delusions of grandeur.
The organization of the book is in five parts corresponding to the months / partial months that make up the 120 days mentioned in the title, and the storytellers tell progressively more vicious tales as the book progresses. The first couple parts don’t involve much violence and the acts described aren’t much different from what one might find in a book like The Story of O, except for the tonnage of poo in the Marquis’ stories. Having compared this to Réage’s work, let me say that it’s not just the poo that makes Sade’s work inferior, it’s also the lack of insight into the mind of the characters. (Part of the problem is that there is a vast cast of victims that have no dimensionality to them.) We see O’s reluctance, anger, pain, and transformation, but get none of this in The 120 Days of Sodom.
As the book progresses, it degrades further into lists of acts of debauchery and cruelty that all seem to blend together into a tepid bowl of poo. The Marquis de Sade wrote this work in prison and it really comes off as an outline of acts of violence he dreamt up out of the frustration of impotence. A well-written work that wanted to explore this situation would pick a few particularly evocative acts from the list and would form them into a coherent story with multi-dimensional characters and a narrative arc. This book is just a list of cringe-worthy acts written out tersely, but they don’t induce a cringe because none of it feels real because we get no insight into characters and the four leads are just supermen who get to do whatever they please without any realistic opposition.
If you read this book, read it out of interest in the historical persona of the Marquis de Sade. If you’re reading it as erotic literature, you’ll probably find it to be a disappointing series of premature ejaculations that just tries too hard to list the most disgusting and objectionable acts imaginable. If you read it as horror, you’ll have to read through a couple of chapters of stuff that’s just disgusting–but not particularly scary, and then when you get to the horrifying part it’ll just be a machine gun blast of little tales with inadequate description to be truly gripping.
Needless, I think the greatest act of cruelty ever committed by the Marquis de Sade was getting people to read this horrible book—maybe that was what he was after.
It’s for good reason that this is considered one of the greatest poems of the 20th century. Eliot’s vivid verse paints a bleak landscape in language of beauty not seen in the poem’s imagery. It will come as no surprise that this work was penned during a dark time in the poet’s life, but it wasn’t just Eliot’s personal dark hour; for many, the wounds of World War I hadn’t yet scarred over.
This poem is divided into five sections, each with an artful title. The five sections of The Waste Land are: “The Burial of the Dead”, “A Game of Chess”, “The Fire Sermon”, “Death by Water”, and “What the Thunder Said.” Some consider The Waste Land to be a collection of five poems, but there is both language and theme that connects the various parts. For example, the following verse is contained in both the first and third chapter:
Unreal City, Under the brown fog…
The poem contains many complex references to Arthurian legends and to a broad swath of literary canon. You can learn about that from individuals more erudite than I. I will suggest a simpler theme, and that is death—not just death, but death as an eraser of legacies and influence. Eliot refers to bone almost as much as he does death, and by the time one’s body is reduced to bones one’s influence on the land of the living is minimal—even for giants among men. When he’s not speaking of bones, he’s speaking of death of masses, also a form of anonymous death.
I will pick a few lines from each of the five sections to illustrate my point.
From “The Burial of the Dead”: Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn A crowd flowed over the London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many
From “A Game of Chess”: I think we are in rat’s alley Where the dead men lost their bones
From “The Fire Sermon”: White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
From “Death by Water”: A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers
From “What the Thunder Said”: After the agony in stony places The shouting and the crying Prison and palace and reverberation Of thunder of spring over distant mountains He who was living is long dead We who were living are now dying With little patience
I’m not saying that Eliot’s views on death and dying are great from a philosophical or psychological perspective—on the contrary, but as a work of poetry these words should be read by all.
Neither the version linked to in GoodReads nor on Amazon is the version I read. As far as I could tell by way of a hasty search, the Kindle edition I read no longer exists.
The title of this novel about the doomed love affair of two cancer-riddled teens says a great deal, and—while lifted from Shakespeare–it’s well-chosen. The lead character is a sixteen-year-old girl named Hazel who has lungs that, as she puts it, “suck at being lungs.” She meets a boy, Augustus, at support group who is in remission, but who had a leg amputated in the process of achieving his momentary cancer-free status. Hazel takes an immediate liking to the handsome and charismatic Augustus (i.e. “Gus”), but remains standoffish because she is–to use her own words–“a grenade.” Meaning that she is going to die young, leaving her loved ones devastated. She has enough guilt about the fact that she will do this to her parents, but is unwilling to subject Gus to the same fate. Augustus, however, is an ardent and skillful wooer and eventually wears Hazel down with his winning ways and selfless acts.
This isn’t a typical read for me by a long shot. It’s written in the language of YA fiction, and it’s brutally depressing in places. Neither of the aforementioned characteristics usually draw me in. However, despite its sad subject matter, the book has a sense of humor that is essential to keep the story from crushing one’s will to continue reading. Of course, the fact that all the major young characters are dying is a cloud ever-present throughout the book. I will say it’s the most viscerally emotional novel I’ve read in some time. The only books this depressing that I’ve read recently were nonfiction works on Pol Pot era Cambodia and the Holocaust.
The strength of the book is its characters. They may be atypically intelligent, clever, and well-spoken teens, but they are intriguing, likable, and well-developed characters. Besides Hazel and Gus, there is a secondary character named Isaac who has a form of cancer that isn’t highly lethal but which does claim his eyes. Hazel and Gus are in one way polar opposites. Gus, the former star athlete, is ever concerned about his legacy, but the less ambitious Hazel believes that everyone fades into oblivion rapidly. These divergent perspectives of similarly doomed youths give one insight into the varied approaches to experiencing one’s mortality.
Another intriguing character is Peter Van Houten, a one-time American writer living in Amsterdam and the heir to a fortune off which he lives as a professional drunk. Van Houten wrote a single book about a person who dies young, which turns out to be based on his own child and is Hazel’s favorite book. Gus reads the book to please Hazel, but becomes genuinely intrigued with its ambiguous ending. Van Houten is an unpleasant character, but his book is a focal point of the storyline. The couple takes a trip to Amsterdam to try to get answers about the novel’s abrupt ending, and this experience proves to be the pivotal point in their relationship. Van Houten–jackass as he may be–does end up passing on some useful wisdom to Hazel and Gus.
I rate this book highly for being readable, captivating, and gripping. I would recommend it for those who don’t usually read YA, though the language and focus is decidedly geared toward a YA audience.
It should be noted that the film adaptation will come out this summer. For some reason they filmed it in Pittsburgh instead of the story’s real setting—and my one-time home—Indianapolis, Indiana. I’ll try not to hold this against it, too much.
As suggested by the subtitle, this is a collection of nine short stories about a dystopian world. What makes it a particularly intriguing read is that the stories take place in one world, and the events all exist within a greater context that could qualify the book as a loosely plotted novel had the writer not defined it as a story collection.
Some characters recur in different stories. For the most part the recurring characters are cameo appearances (e.g. Folio Johnson, a detective and the lead in one story, commiserates at a bar in another). However, the character of Ptolemy “Popo” Bent is a critical character in both the first and penultimate chapters.
Race and politics aren’t subtle in this book. Given the [sad] proclivity of American readers to only read / enjoy politically charged works with which they agree (unless the book in question is making fun of the opposition), it’s safe to say that—on the whole–those at the left-end of the political spectrum will find this book more palatable and on-point and those to the right-end will find it unbelievable and overbearing in its message.
Having said that, I’m of the persuasion that finds Mosley’s dystopian vision strains credulity, and yet I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of stories. This book’s dystopia is characterized by global domination by a corporation and a religion called the “Infochurch,” both led by the same man. The corporate control of the world storyline is a little hard to swallow. A monopoly can’t enslave people (or even enforce its monopoly status) unless it has a monopoly on force, and it’s hard to imagine a path by which a private business gets the people to give them a monopoly on force. That being said, Mosley’s stories are engrossing, creative, and readable.
The nine stories are as follows:
1.) Whispers in the Dark (6 Chapters): A man makes the ultimate sacrifice to help nurture a brilliant child’s special gift.
2.) The Greatest (9 Chapters): A female boxer becomes the world champion while seeking to help her father, whose addition to a drug called Pulse has left him in dire health. (The father’s story, Voices, appears later in the collection.)
3.) Dr. Kismet (4 Chapters): The man who is, for all intents and purposes, Emperor of the World tries to co-opt the co-chair of the 6th Radical Congress—a leading member of his opposition.
4.) Angel’s Island (5 Chapters): A hacker, sent to prison for Antisocial Behavior, has a device called a snake-pack installed that can control him by administration of drugs and shocks. But the ultimate hacker might not be the most easily controlled using technology.
5.) Electric Eye (4 Chapters): Folio Johnson, a private eye with an electronic eye, is hired to find out why young International Socialists are dropping dead left and right. Johnson learns that any hardware, even his eye, can be hacked.
6.) Voices (8 Chapters): Professor Jones, father of the female boxer from The Greatest, undergoes a transplant of neural matter to repair damage from his Pulse addition. After having dreams and memories that are not his own, Jones discovers that his treatment is not all that it seemed.
7.) Little Brother (3 Chapters): Frendon Blythe is on trial before a computer that acts as both judge and prosecutor. He pleads his own case, and finds he was a pawn.
8.) En Masse (12 Chapters): A worker gets sent to a new division only to find that it’s nothing like his previous divisions. Instead of strict rules, GEE-PRO-9 has no rules. He wonders if it might be a test by the management. It turns out that it is a test–just not of the type he imagined.
9.) The Nig in Me (6 Chapters): After a plot to destroy certain races backfires, a surviving man finds himself missing those with whom he was closest.
There’re no stinkers among these stories. They are all intriguing and readable, but a few of them stood out as being particularly good. These were: Whispers in the Dark, Angel’s Island, Voices, and En Masse.
I’d recommend this for readers of soft science fiction.
Even if you haven’t read Mary Shelley’s masterwork, you’re probably familiar with the gist of the story. An ambitious, young scientist creates a creature grotesquely emulating the human form, and then abandons it in disgust. The creature, which doesn’t start off as a monster, eventually becomes one as it is subjected to brutal, inescapable loneliness.
The story has been spoofed by Mel Brooks and the Simpsons, and recently a movie came out that is based on a graphic novel that continues the story in the future as the immortal “monster”—played by Aaron Ekhart–roams the Earth. Of course, many of the pop culture references are based on the early Frankenstein movies. These movies made the creature much less nuanced, and told a story that was much less sophisticated. In the movies, Frankenstein’s monster is the villain, but in the novel one is as likely to see the doctor, Victor Frankenstein, as the true villain.
Besides being readable for early 19th century prose, the story is loaded with morality tales that don’t draw attention to themselves—those are the best kind. The first lesson is that joy is in the journey and not the destination. Victor Frankenstein wants nothing more than to create life—except perhaps to marry Elizabeth, a sister-like childhood playmate who is not blood related. As soon as he succeeds in creating life, he abandons his creation and will have nothing to do with the monster.
Second, Frankenstein’s lack of empathy for the wretched creature is the source of his own downfall. This lack of empathy is rooted in the notion that the creature is not human. While perhaps the creature isn’t human (that question itself is one of the great philosophical debates proffered by this book), when Frankenstein’s monster shows himself to have the same longings and frailties as a man, doctor Frankenstein still can’t empathize with it.
Third, decisions made out of fear often lead down a path to damnation. Dr. Frankenstein vacillates between agreeing to assist the monster he detests and refusal to help. After agreeing, he lets his fears drive a turnabout that ultimately damns the monster and himself.
The narrative approach taken is interesting. It’s a story being told within a story. The account is written by a ship’s Captain who rescues Dr. Frankenstein during the doctor’s pursuit of the monster. The explanation takes the form of a series of letters to the Captain’s sister. However, as it’s essentially a transcription of Dr. Frankenstein’s account to the Captain, that’s how most of it reads. We start and end in real-time aboard the ship in the icy north, but the bulk of the book is a retelling of events that occurred in Europe, starting with Dr. Frankenstein’s childhood and revolving around the creation of the monster and the events that ensued thereafter. Part of the story is actually told from the monster’s perspective as Frankenstein recounts what the monster told him.
The main weakness of the book is a slow beginning as Dr. Frankenstein feels the need to tell his life story in chronological order from his boyhood. It’s deceptive to say it “starts slow” because it opens with a great hook. If you knew nothing of the story—as Mary Shelley had to assume of her readers—you would really be curious about the Captain’s description of what the ship’s crew witnessed. It’s really when Frankenstein begins telling his tale that there is some needless exposition.
As one might imagine, there are many elements of the story that strain credulity. Frankenstein’s monster not only learns the language, but learns to speak it with the eloquence and erudition of a highly educated man in a relatively short time period. However, I don’t fault this because it raises the question of what faculties the monster receives from his component pieces. In other words, does Frankenstein really need to learn to read and speak from scratch or does he just need to remember what lays in the transplanted brain (and vocal chords) from which he was built. Of course, this further raises the question of whether he is human, humans, or something different altogether.
This is one of those books that everybody should read, and they should think about what they are reading. This is the kind of book that one can learn from. Mainly, one can learn a lot about how not to conduct oneself by the tragic story of Dr. Frankenstein.
Furthermore, for fans of science fiction, this is generally considered to be where the genre all began. While the movies have been heavily in the domain of horror, the novel revolves around the scientific and philosophical questions, which are much more front and center.
Amazon recently put out a list of 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime. I appreciate the mega-bookseller taking a less doctrinaire approach than, say, The Guardian’s 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. Also, props to Amazon for including a number of contemporary works—though I guess that is self-serving of them (i.e. $10 versus $0 sales price)—so never mind.
Whenever I see one of these lists—and there are so many of them—I always feel a bit inadequate. I suspect I’m not alone, given a recent generic list posted by The Millions, entitled 28 Books You Should Read If You Want To. That author’s approach is laudable. She doesn’t hand out exact titles as if we all need the same books, but rather suggests the kind of books one should consider reading (but only if you want to.)
I read like a fiend. While I usually don’t read rapidly (I can; I learned how in grad school, but I prefer savoring to injecting words), I’m constantly reading. So it’s a little disappointing to see how I stack up in the grand scheme of list-makers.
So this brings me to the point of this post, which is to boost my self-esteem by building a list of books, all of which, I’ve read. As I considered the books I’ve read that I would be so bold as to recommend “everyone” read, I saw trends. First, I read a lot of thin books, or, perhaps, they stick with me more. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read some monsters Moby Dick (on everybody’s list—I don’t know why), Atlas Shrugged (on the Libertarian Book-of-the-Month Club list, and not much else), and 1Q84 (given a few years, it’ll be on all the lists.) However, it’s the thin books that have stuck with me, and they often get kicked aside by the [other] pretentious list makers. Also, shorter forms (e.g. essays, short stories, poems, and novellas) often don’t get properly recognized because everyone wants to talk about novels and tomes.
Second, while I like to consider myself an international reader (e.g. I’ve read a fair number of translated Japanese and Chinese classics), the fact of the matter is that I’ve had a skewed reading history. I’m an American, and have disproportionately read books that are either by Americans or that speak to the American worldview / mindset (my list will be both.) This isn’t so much an issue for most of the list makers as they simply propose that every Nigerian, Thai, and Peruvian should read a canon devoid of any Nigerian, Thai, and Peruvian authors (but instead that is 50% British, 30% American, and 20% all others.) While the list may be targeted toward U.S. audience, these books are good for everybody, and everybody should read outside the familiar.
Without further ado, my list, 30 Thin Books That Every [Attention-Challenged] American Should Read:
Because poetry is good for the soul. Yes, this anthology is skewed toward dead poets, but it’s not only thin, it’s cheap. It’s got Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, Sandburg, and Hughes.
Because, screw totalitarianism, that’s why. This is like 1984, but without the villainy clubbing one over the skull. Therefore, you can introduce the kids to commie-hating early and without giving them nightmares—well not bad ones. Plus, it’s thinner than 1984.
Because virtue is good for the soul. This is Plato’s account of Socrates’ defense at his own trial and his subsequent explanation of why he was going to drink the hemlock. Yes, it’s technically three books, but they are often bundled together as one book. Even with all three, it’s pretty thin.
Because Orwellian dystopia isn’t the only dystopia. In Huxley’s book, tyranny wasn’t a matter of force, but manipulation. This book shows how dystopia can be disguised as utopia by keeping the population adequately drugged and well-sexed.
Because satire is good for the soul. No sacred cows escape roasting in this thin volume. A naïve young man travels out into the world to find that evil is ubiquitous.
Because how often does a book coin a common phrase. (FYI- “A Clockwork Orange” was a phrase Burgess borrowed for the book that was common in some parts, but Heller invented the term “Catch-22.”) The story revolves around the notion that one can’t get out of the war by reason of insanity, because if one is trying to get out of the war one is sane by definition, and if you are insane, you don’t try to get out.
Because if you’re going to break the law, you should know how to do it do it virtuously and not like a dirtbag. (Hint: It’s more painful than you think.) This essay tells of Thoreau’s imprisonment because he refused to pay taxes that would fund the war with Mexico. It’s usually bundled with other essays.
Because books are good. The title comes from the temperature at which books burn, and it’s set in a dystopian future in which the protagonist, “Fireman” Guy Montag, goes around collecting and burning books.
Because you should know how to turn someone down (e.g. I would not eat them on a boat, I would not eat them with a goat.) Or, because learning to be playful with words may serve one well. Or, because you should try new things. In the story, an unnamed narrator is subjected endlessly to green eggs and ham, which he steadfastly, refuses until the end.
Because you think you’ve got a weird family. Hamlet exacts revenge when he finds out that his uncle killed his father to marry his mother and usurp the throne.
Because you don’t want to underestimate Mother Nature when you strike out to build your indomitable American spirit. This is the true story of a college graduate who gives away his bank account, burns his pocket-money, cuts ties with his upper-middle class family, and sets off to become self-made. Ultimately, he ends up in Alaska, and it does not end well.
Because, stop being such a gloomy-Gus. Admittedly, this is an unconventional choice– both because it’s not particularly skillfully written and a few of its conclusions may not be as true as they once were. However, it does inject a dose of reality for those who view the world through shit-colored glasses. As the title suggests, the authors argue that life in America is getting better year after year. We are getting healthier and richer. Being economists, they present much of their findings as graphic representations of statistical data.
Because sometimes the world actually looks better through shit-colored glasses, Seriously, because you need to know how to get on with it when life is at its toughest. Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who writes about what kept people going at places like Auschwitz.
Because, just get on with it. This was actually a kind of “Notes to Self,” written by the Roman Emperor to remind himself to be virtuous, to live, and to not fear death.
Because you don’t get enough of the word “rickety” these days. But seriously, you get to “see” a lot of America through Kerouac’s poetic language. It follows the road trips of a beat generation protagonist through America.
Because Faulkner’s language rocks, and this is a gripping and gritty tale. It’s the story of an upper class co-ed who’s dragged down into the underworld and some desperate times by a couple bad decisions, not the least of which was going for a ride with a stupid drunk.
Because you need a pep talk to think for yourself. Emerson proposed that one stand as an individual and stop letting political parties, religions, or other organizations decide what one believes. Emerson and Twain both saw a sad trend brewing in which people were starting define their beliefs by identifying with a party and then letting that party’s opinion leaders tell them what to think. Sadly, this trend only grew since there day to the point that many people have extremely strong beliefs that they can’t begin explain in a logically and factually consistent way.
Because one day China is going to collect on our debts, and well need some grasp of their culture. Seriously, you should read outside your culture. In the process, you’ll find that the Taoist stream of thought isn’t all that far off our own—“f#@k authority and pretentiousness and all the bureaucratic formalities.”
Because, screw Melville, this is the great American novel. Yes, I realize that it’s not particularly thin, but compared to Moby Dick it is—and it reads more quickly because there aren’t long drawn out sections on the minutiae of whale pineal glands and what not. This book follows the adventures of that rapscallion, Huck, as he flees a drunk father and a lady who wants to make him civilized, and takes to rafting on the Mississippi with an escaped slave. Yes, it has the n-word like a billion times, but if you read all the words (and not just that one) you’ll see there’s a positive message about the development of mutual friendship and respect between Huck and Jim.
Because you need to get outside more. It’s the story of a dog who is taken from the good life as a pet in California to the wilds of Alaska, and what said dog must do to survive.
Because you need to be concise AND coherent. In the age of Twitter, people are mastering the former while losing the latter. This is a thin books that tells you most of what you need to know to write intelligibly in English.
Because America has a dark side, and nobody writes it better than Poe. Any of the many collections of Poe’s short stories (some including poems and/or long-form works) will do. One definitely wants “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “Tell-tale Heart,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “A Descent into the Maelstrom,” and, of course, the title poem.
Because we need an injection of Stoicism to counteract the prevailing trend toward whining and moaning. Epictetus was a slave who became one of the most famous Greek sages. His sayings are mostly about not crying over spilt milk, but to be careful not to be the one who spills the milk. In other words, don’t whine about what the world gives you, devote your energies to being virtuous and conscientious.
Because you should understand your place in the ecosystem, and Lewis Thomas describes it artfully and concisely. This is a series of essays that covers a lot of ground with respect to the subjects of biology and physiology.
Because you may just want to take over the word someday. This is advice about how to rule. It may not make one popular as a middle manager, but there are bits of wisdom throughout.
Because someday it’s all going to come to an end, and it will probably end badly. This is the story of a father and son wandering through a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I realize I’ve put a lot of dystopianism on this short list, but I’m going to say that’s part of the American condition. America has had it good for long enough to realize that all things come to an end.
Because we should not give the short story short shrift, and Hemingway—like Poe—did them well. Besides the title story, this collection includes “The Killers”, “The Gambler, The Nun, and the Radio”, and “A Clean, Well-lighted Place.”
Because you need to get out of the country and experience some of the rest of the world. This is about the travels from Paris to Pamplona of a group of men who’ve all fallen for the same woman with that woman—of course—along for the ride.
Because you need to get out of the house, away from your cubicle, and out into nature. This is an essay extolling the virtues of putting one foot in front of the other like you mean it.
This is the story of a little boy’s dreamtime journey to a world inhabited by “monsters” and his interaction with them. Like Green Eggs and Ham, you should have read this as a kid. If you didn’t, I’m sorry about your defective parents, but get over it. Since you probably don’t want to read this as an adult on the Metro going to work, you can get Christopher Walken to read it for you on YouTube.
So that is it. That is my list of 30 Thin Books that Every [Attention-Challenged] American Should Read.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
