"The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton: A Review

This was my second Wharton, the first being Ethan Frome, which I though was pretty God-awful. [Spoiler] It has the most laughable, goofy suicide scene I've ever read in my life [end spoiler]. BUT I try to give an author at least two tries, so I picked up this book hoping it would redeem Wharton in my eyes, and it did, except I can't make up my mind about the ending.

It stars Very Rich Young Man who is engaged to Very Conventional Lady. This makes him happy because he looks forward to teaching her about life (elbow, elbow) and throwing parties and being all rich in New York. Then he meets Very UNConventional Lady and falls in love with her because she represents everything he never knew life should be: dinners with "people who write!" Drinking champagne- on a SUNDAY, horror of horrors.

[More spoilers]
This new and exciting existence (?) tempts him and he resolves to leave Very Conventional Lady because she's just so bloody boring, except now they're married and he's knocked her up and that plan goes out the window and then it's thirty years later and his life was pretty ok, now that he thinks about it, thank you very much.

Wharton's descriptions of New York society in 1870 are very Jane Austen- she says a great deal of tongue-in-cheek things about their silly rules concerning when you can and cannot enter an opera box, and how long you're supposed to store a dress before you wear it, and what kind of cigar you're supposed to offer after dinner. She pokes fun but somehow never crosses the line into being disrespectful. In that way, she's really funny, but the endless descriptions about furniture and drawing rooms gets kind of tedious.

I found the heroine, Ellen, to be really super boring and I couldn't help but find her cousin May much more interesting (Newland is the Very Rich Young Man who marries May but loves Ellen, her cousin). Ellen's Super Fascinating Bits that make Newland love her so are as follows: she likes to talk to intellectual people, she arranges flowers differently, and admits in private that sometimes, rich old people are boring. She seems like an airhead. Newland's wife, on the other hand, deftly spots that Newland has feelings for Ellen and manages to run her OUT OF THE COUNTRY without mussing her coif. She seems smarter and much more in control of her life. Ellen needs rescuing, as she admits over and over, which is more conventional than May handling a situation without consulting anyone.

I can't decide if I like the ending, where he goes to Paris after his wife dies and 30 years after he's last seen Ellen. He goes to her apartment and sits outside it, but won't go in because his memory of Ellen is more real to him than real Ellen, or..something. Really? Why don't you not go in because it was 30 years ago. My Lordy, get over it. On the other hand, you could interpret his walking away as his admission that he has gotten over it, and that he's happy with the decision he made to remain with his wife. If the ending is a declaration of love for his memory of Ellen, I don't like it- it's melodramatic. If it's an admission that he did the right thing (which he did), then I do like it- it shows how the character has matured, and more aptly fits the description of the Newland in the last chapter.

Also, a lot of reviews I've read point out Wharton's similarities to Henry James. They were besties, so I think that's kind of :shoulder shrug: Wharton's writing is way more feminine. The way she writes love scenes, the details she includes, the sympathy she shows her characters, are all very womanly. Henry James is a much colder, more psychological writer. They're similar, but not enough for this big fuss.

SO. The parts about New York society are funny. Newland's whining is grating, and the heroine is lukewarm. The minor characters, like May's super-fat grandmother and Newland's foppish friends, are an engaging cast. The novel's mature and real portrayal of disillusionment after marriage, the nature of temptation, and the nature of duty are pretty fascinating. Wharton sides with doing one's duty to one's family, which can be an unpopular and even edgy viewpoint in the modern world. So, as a modern reader, pick it up- morality is the new black.

Four stars out of your mom.

Those of you who have read it, please tell me your thoughts. Perhaps it will help me clear up my this face: :/, followed by a shoulder shrug, followed by a murmur of: "I really liked it, but I just don't know..Ellen was so bleh...the ending was so wha?..but it was great..but.." Much obliged.

I-Hop. I'm sorry, did someone say pancakes?

Nope, they didn't! Dirty liars.

Welcome to this week's Book Hop, hosted by Crazy For Books. Pull up a chair, have a look around. Check in my medicine cabinets, it's fine. There's nothing in there but Tums and nail polish.

This week, the question for the hop is: who is your favorite new-to-you author of the year? My answer would be Sherwood Anderson, who wrote Winesburg, Ohio. My review of this heart-breakingly amazing account of American life is here. Anderson was one of the first important 20th century American authors, and was a direct influence on Gertrude Stein, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and was actually the person who told Hemingway to move to Paris to write. Without Anderson, American literature would like quite differently today. Which may be a good thing, depending on how you feel about contemporary literature...I'll say GOOD American literature would look quite differently, how about that?

ALSO, in the spirit of the hop, be sure to check out my previous post: MEN YOUR MEN COULD BLOG LIKE, where I feature some of my favorite book blogs by the fellas. It's right down there (that's what she said). I mean, it's under this one (that's what she said, also).

The Men Your Men Could Blog Like

Ah, Old Spice man. I want him to follow me around, narrating my life: "I'm walking behind you. Look down now look up now don't run into that old guy. Look! It's two tickets..from a police officer.." etc.

ANYWAY. Did you know that 96% of book bloggers are women? Also, did you know that 54% of statistics are made up? (See what I did there?) I don't know the real percentages, but I have observed that a huge, ginormous, really-really-big portion of the book blogging world is ladies. There's nothing wrong with that, but it can be said to give the impression that men don't read. Or at least, don't read and then talk about it with the interwebs. Of course, neither of these impressions are true. So, in a stroke of reverse-feminism, aka actual gender equality, I'm here to point you towards some of my favorite book blogs written by the fellas.

THE READING APE: He's a literature professor with a fantastic blog that includes reviews, literary analysis, and commentary on current events in the book world. He says smarty-mcsmart things all the time, and is a nice break from a lot of the "oh my gah this book was like SO GREAT." Which, you know. I do a lot of, so..no judgement. Anyway, VERY thought provoking stuff here.

Roof Beam Reader: I mean, anyone with a blog named after a Salinger work is a-ok in my book. He blogs about everything from Vanity Fair to Harry Potter, though he seems to stick mostly with classics and literary fiction. AND he gives away classics during his Banned Book meme, which I love. No other blog I've come across gives away books I actually want to read! YAY!

The New Dork Review of Books: Literary fiction reviews at their finest. He's really fantastic about drawing readers into interesting conversations about literary fiction, whether it's listing their favorite quotes or debating (in a nice way) about the ending of The Life of Pi. And he's read The Corrections, a book that mocks me from my shelves, so..automatic props.

The Literate Man: I love this guy. "Throwing men a life preserver in an ocean of chick-lit." That's a guy worth reading. He reads a great deal of classics, including rather intimidating ones (James Joyce, anyone?). I get pretty much ALL the books I recommend to my husband from this blog.

ProSe: Another Very Brave Guy who has spent the summer reading ALL of Thomas Hardy's works. His reviews are SUPER informative, in that they give you the idea of whether you want to read the book or not, but they also include historical context, comparisons with the author's other works, etc. Very thoughtful and respectful. We read him when we're feeling bad about calling Charles Dickens a cotton-headed ninny-muggins. Ok, not really, we read him all the time, not just when we're feeling bad. Let's be honest- I don't ever feel bad!

That's all, folks! Any other recommendations for book blogs by men out there?

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Books of All Time

The ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish have created a weekly meme based on my only other weakness besides cookies: LISTS. I am a listo-maniac. The list-inator. Anway, I don't participate every week because..well I don't do ANYTHING that regularly, which is a nice way of saying I'm sort of a lazy sod. HOWEVER. This week's list is your top ten favorite reads of all time, and that list I have to share. I thought it would be a nice thing for you guys to know so you can judge me appropriately. What? Don't give me that look. I know you do it. Don't lie.

This list is in constant flux as I read more and more ah-may-zing things, but here it is for today. In no particular order, mind you:

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Uh, great American novel what? It covers all the quintessentially AMERICAN themes: greed, love, the American dream, ambition, and individualism. Plus, it's a rip-roaring party in a really sad, depressing, flat champagne sort of way. And I have a bit of it tattooed on my back so, you know. I better love it. (The language is also breath-taking).

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Charlotte is the best Bronte. She's the most sophisticated and the most mature, and THIS is her best work. It's dark and brooding without being a total rip-off of Byron coughcoughWUTHERINGHEIGHTScoughcough. Mr. Rochester, unlike some of Austen's male heroes, is deeply flawed. He's brutish and rude, and Jane totally conquers him with grace and intelligence.

3. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: This should be called Levin because that's who you really care about. A lot of people are scared of this book's size, but don't be. There are bigger, more tedious works out there, and the plot is fast-moving enough to keep you engaged throughout. It's also been billed as a "great love story" but that's a load of hooey. Anna and Vronsky are sucky, and you really read it to find out about Levin, and through him the book expresses its real theme: faith.

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: It's like a written episode of "Kids Say the Darndest Things." There is rarely a word in the book more than two syllables, and there is no better book that portrays doing right when the world is against you. Perfect under-dog book. Atticus Finch is one of the best-drawn characters in literature.

5. Bleak House by Charles Dickens: I've read most of the work of Dickens, and I still think this is his best. It's the most mature in the handling of social justice themes AND it's from the point of view of a woman. The opening paragraph is one of the greatest I've ever read- go look it up and see if it doesn't hook you.

6. Middlemarch by George Eliot: Jane Austen for grown-ups. And please, don't take that as a stab at La Austen. I love her. But sometimes, you want to see what happens AFTER the wedding, and that is what George Eliot gives you. This is social realism at its finest. You care deeply about everyone in the novel. I want to rename this War and Peace in the Home because that's what it's about. The warring and loving between friends, family members, neighbors, and spouses. Plus, Mary Garth is one of the pluckiest female characters out there.

7. Dune by Frank Herbert: WHA??!! Truth. This book totally transcends its science fiction label. It is never cheesy, and always brilliantly smart. Frank Herbert takes a look at religion, the fallacy of logic, and the definition of good and evil. And there's never that moment when you're totally confused by the language- "Wait, is that a person, planet, alien? Form of sandwich?"

8. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: The best book about redemption (ok, Crime and Punishment devotees, put down your stones- Les Mis is WAY easier to read). Jean Valjean is actually pretty similar to Atticus Finch in that he is a lone wolf of charitable, human love in a broken system of religious hard-heartedness and social tradition. This is a book about being human, and about loving humanity is spite of  (fill in the blank).

9. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf: You'll never be as engrossed by a dinner party again. And it never feels trite. In the same way that Tolstoy is the master of the grand stroke, Woolf is the master of the small detail, and snippet of thought in a character's mind. You'll leave it thinking, "that IS what life is like."

10. Moby Dick by Herman Melville: It almost reads like a fantasy novel combined with a biology book combined with a mythological epic. It's nothing like what you expect, and it's totally bizarre. You will come away knowing everything there is to know about whale anatomy, vengeance, and pursuing a lost cause.

Honorable mentions: The Portrait of a Lady, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Everything is Illuminated, Persuasion, and Remains of the Day.

So, spill. What's your top ten, or do you totally think I'm nuts for one (or all) entries?

Death to Bookish Snobbery

So, today I was posting in a Goodreads group about W. Somerset Maugham. I found an article in the New York Times reviewing a biography of Maugham, that apparently includes bits about how he entertained 16 year old male hookers in his many parties, and how he was just generally an icky sort of fellow. I said in the group that this information makes me sorta not want to read his books because the whole time I'll be thinking "if this guy was such a jackass, why do I care what he has to say about the world?" This question ignited a whirlwind of you're-so-judgmental-how-dare-you-not-read-a-classic-die-die.

Really?
Really?

So I've spent the morning thinking about bookish snobbery. Is it "wrong" to not read a novel because you don't like the author as a person? One poster in the group claimed that not reading an author because of his personal life is prejudice, and that there is no room for such a reader in serious literary conversation. Isn't this tantamount to saying that people who exclude authors from their reading lists because of their morality are somehow un-intellectual? Are morality and intellectual thought mutually exclusive? Is there no room for personal morality in reading choices?

I am of the opinion that people can and should read whatever they bloody well please for whatever reason makes them feel warm and fuzzy. You want to read chick-lit because you like reading for escapism and the classics give you brain-ouchies? Great, go for it! You like reading the classics because you like the sermonizing? Whatever, sure, that's awesome! You want to read Mein Kampf because you're a complete psychopath? Uh..I don't know about that one, but sure, that's fine too.

You know what else? I'll even let you participate in "literary conversation." Because what is a literary conversation if we are not allowed to bring our thoughts and beliefs to it? If we all read what we were "supposed to" instead of making our own choices, wouldn't that make for a bloody boring "literary conversation?" The opinion of every reader is relevant. There is no real "books you must read before you die" list that the intellectual pompous asses have handed down to the poor, moral masses with their inability to think through their own belief systems. And if I decide to not read an author because his personal choices make his worldview unattractive to me, why is that bad? Are authors AUTOMATICALLY authorities that should have the right to speak in to your life simply because some professors somewhere like him? What kind of thought-control is that?

Bookish snobbery is the worst kind of snobbery because it masquerades as freeing, non-judgmental intellectual conversation. Death to it, I say.

Ok, now scroll back up to the second paragraph and tell me what you think about those questions.

"A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle: A Review of a Children's Classic

This was a literary palette cleanse. After a particularly heavy read, I sometimes find myself needing to read something that doesn't involve using all my brain parts. Sometimes it's an Agatha Christie mystery, and sometimes it is a classic children's novel, a la Anne of Green Gables or The Secret Garden. After reading the bleak bleaky bleakness that was The Bell Jar, I needed a light sorbet for the head bone.

So, I remember feeling pretty meh about this as a kid, and I still feel pretty meh about it. I like that it has a girl protagonist who isn't all sweetness and light. She's a real kid, with braces and funny hair and a bad temper, except she's a MATH GENIUS. And her five year old brother is a PHILOSOPHICAL GENIUS who can sort of READ YOUR MIND. And she falls for another genius, but only a lower case one because you never really know what he's there for?

Anyway, one thing I did like about this book is that the evil is actually really evil. It's not a bad wizard who no one wants to name but everyone names anyway, or an Evil Eye off in an Evil Land surrounded by Evil Things. It's a scary blackness that sucks all the life and joy out of the characters, along with inflicting real physical pain on them before making them robotic evil subjects. It's scary for me. It also reminded me of The Fifth Element, for some reason. Maybe it was the space parts.

Speaking of the space parts, that was nice. L'Engle obviously has faith in the intelligence of children because she doesn't ever shy from trying to explain time travel, life on other planets, or mathematical concepts. She's brave there. She's also quotes Shakespeare and Goethe, along with other Very Smart People. It's nice to read a kids book that doesn't dumb down the ideas to wizard-boy-has-wand levels.

The only real problems I had with it was that the pacing was off. The book never finds its rhythm. You're just getting to know the characters, and you just start to be really creeped out by the baddie, and then  (spoiler) LOVE CONQUERS ALL the end. Oh, and there's a puppy. The ending has a deus ex machina feel that's really unsatisfying. She could have done a lot more with the story. So, it's interesting enough to finish but at the end, my thoughts were more about making vegetable soup and doing laundry, and less about the triumph of love over evil.

Three stars out of your mom.

"The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath: A Review

Blah Blah Blah insert tired whining about how only stereotypes read this book, how only cliches of feminist literary students and depressed teenage girls like it blah.

Except I'm not a total snob, so we're gonna go ahead and not do that. INSTEAD we'll take a tour of people who have “I am I am I am” tattooed on their body somewhere. Because THAT'S not a cliché. OBSERVE (Seriously, click it. REVEL. Then come back.) :

http://community.livejournal.com/literarytattoos/tag/sylvia%20plath

Anyway.

So, when I was a depressed teenage girl-wait. Doh. Whatever. So, when I was a depressed teenage girl, I worshipped the oven in which Ms. Plath stuck her nicely coifed hair. I bought her poems, her short stories, even her journals. I spent long, tortured nights in my suburban bedroom, combing them with a pink highlighter, praising the stars above that someone understood my ennui! Ok, A. I recognize that whiny middle class women are a sort of walking joke; however, B. Middle class existence is sort of depressing, isn't it? It's all “oh no, my brownies are burnt, what will I bring to the bake sale, I'm going to be late for the dance recital oh don't forget to get my shoes re-soled need a new vacuum what a great life I lead except for that thing about my husband's secretary la de dah.” Vomit.

Except I was 16, and had never gotten a shoe re-soled or bought a vacuum cleaner in my life, so I don't really know what I was so damned angry about. But I was, and I therefore covered The Bell Jar with little sticky-lip-gloss smooches. You know. The clear kind in the roller thing that smells like strawberries. That stuff was my JAM.

So, in order to continue my Summer of Re-Reading Books I Say I Love But About Which I Don't Actually Remember Anything, I picked up The Bell Jar to see if I would find Esther Greenwood's mental breakdown relatable, heart wrenching, and beautiful; or histrionic, annoying, and stop-poking-me-in-the-eye-with-that-blunt-object-wait-that's-just-your-self-indulgence-y. I didn't really find it to be any of those things- instead, it was just sort of scary.

The novel is about Esther, a young college student who begins having a mental breakdown in New York, except it's New York and everyone there is nuts so no one really notices. Then she moves back to the suburbs in the summer where no one is nuts (or ARE they) and falls apart. She attempts suicide and is hospitalized. The story is autobiographical to the point that Plath had it published under a pseudonym initially to spare her loved ones.

So, Esther does whine a bit, but not in the way most reviewers I've read claim. She's not a middle class person whining about how bad her life is. Esther's character has a very reasonable breakdown. It reminded me of the short story The Yellow Wallpaper, where the main character starts imagining the wallpaper is alive and out to get her, and she records her psychosis in her journal in a completely reasonable, calm way. You follow Esther into her mental collapse sort of willingly because she SOUNDS SO NORMAL. She feeds birds. She has a boyfriend. She likes daiquiris. Then, little things start to happen that don't make sense- like she thinks the neighbor is spying on her. She sleeps between the mattress and the box-spring to block out light. She wears the same clothes for three weeks without washing them.

This isn't the histrionic, Prozac Nation whininess that all young people can relate to. Matter of fact, I don't know what I found relatable about this book as a teenager. LUCKILY I highlighted my copy and of course I only seemed to like the bits about hating your parents and being hungry and wanting to go to sleep a lot. So, I related to the bits about being young. From an adult's view point it's much easier to see this novel for what it is- a young woman's steady decline into a very medical mental illness. That Plath ever came up long enough to write the book, along with all her poetry, is amazing. Like many crazy people, her prose is precise and beautiful (what IS it about being nuts that also makes you a super genius?). You can tell the Plath's real strength was in poetry- it almost reads like a 290 page narrative poem.

Ignore the people who tell you it's whiny- they haven't read it since they were 16, and what they're really saying is that THEY were whiny so therefore the book must have been whiny because they loved it so much. Read it again. It's a completely different experience as a mature person, though I wouldn't really know. Nudge, nudge, grin.

Four stars out of your mom.

With All These Hops, Can't Someone Make Me a Beer?

Welcome to this week's book hop, folks. If you're new here, please have a look around. But not to much of a look because the place is messy, I haven't swept in ages and I've shoved the dirty dishes in the oven.

This week's question from Crazy For Books is: tell me about your current read.

Right now, I'm re-reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar as part of my Summer of Re-Reading Books I Say I Love But About Which I Don't Actually Remember Anything. We've already covered The Catcher in the Rye (didn't love it this time around, but I do love everything else Salinger's written), The Great Gatsby (super love) and To Kill A Mockingbird, which I may or may not carry around with me everyday as a reminder of its greatness.

Ok, I don't carry it around, but only because I'm making the Husband read it. What? He should be used to this by now. And he DID love Anna Karenina after I made him read that. Didn't you? Yes. Yes you did.

Anyway, I'm about 1/3 of the way through Plath's novel-for-feminist-literary-theory-grad-students cough cough I mean classic and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I do fear, however, that I won't worship the table upon which it sits the way I did in high school when I first read it. Though Sylvia did prove she wasn't being histrionic by going and sticking her head in an oven. So, I won't make the claim that it's whiny, but I'M not as whiny or angsty. It's a nice thing, though, to read it with a clear head and simply assess it as a novel, as opposed to an ANTHEM OF MY ENNUI.

Also, I'm THIS CLOSE to 100 followers, so, you know..tell your friends.

Why I Don't Like Modern Literature

I don't like modern literature. Why, that's a mighty broad and sweeping statement, I hear you thinking. What about- no, I didn't like it. Wait, you MUST have liked- nope, sure didn't. Just stop while you're ahead. (Also, to clarify: by modern, I don't mean books written during the Modern period of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, et. al. I mean books that were written recently- during my lifetime.)

It started like this- when I was a senior in high school, I read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and immediately become obsessed with it, in the way that everyone who reads Ayn Rand and loves it immediately becomes a complete ass. I made all my friends read it, I made my boyfriend read it, and then I tried to make my English teacher read it. Bad idea. My English teacher (who may or may not have resembled Jaba the Hut) replied thusly to my inquiry as to whether or not she had read Ayn Rand: “Modern literature is self-centered, atheistic, solipsistic garbage.” Literarily, that's what she said, word for word. I recognize that Ayn Rand herself isn't exactly modern, and certainly wasn't written in my lifetime, but the opinion of aforementioned Jaba stuck with me. This was someone I respected. I turned back to reading things written before 1900, just to be safe.

Then I went to college as an English major. My first semester, I took a required contemporary literature class. We read Waterland by Graham Swift, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, Rice by Su Tong, and A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. On my own, I read such gems as Silk, Elizabeth Costello, The Shipping News, and The Heather Blazing. Of course, when I say gem, what I mean is boring, hopeless, gray crap. I began to agree with my high school teacher (with the exception of the Margaret Atwood, which I loved). I approached my professor, and told her what my high school teacher said about modern lit. She said this: “That's probably true, but that's where literature is going and if you don't like it you shouldn't be an English major.”

I changed my major to history the same afternoon, and I've feared modern lit since I was 19. I have trouble finding examples that aren't complete post-modern experiments in no-plot, which seem to have forgotten that people like STORIES. Or books that aren't totally depressing, and not in a hopeful green-light-at-the-end-of-the-dock kind of way, but in a “wow, people are dog poop and life is awful” kind of way. Or books that aren't Bret Easton Ellis vomit gag. Or books that don't totally rob older, better written books. My two exceptions are Everything Is Illuminated and Remains of the Day. I even read Atonement, and didn't hate it- mostly because of that bit where the little girl realizes she can move her pinky finger WITH HER MIND.

So, I stick to the classics (if you're wondering what my definition of a classic is, look at the linky bit at the top of the page). I'm almost guaranteed a well-written, thoughtful reading experience. They're not all pleasant, and they're not all roses and sunshine, but for the most part, writers of the classics still had hope for humanity. They still believed in something, and contributed something worthwhile to Western thought other than “wow, life's a slog, 'int it?” Maybe this is lazy of me, that I tend to only read books that are widely accepted as Really Effing Good. Or maybe I'm just protecting my brain from further agreeing with my high school teacher- cause how uncool is that?

I will add that I AM totally open to changing my mind about this. I would love to read something written since my year of birth that isn't self-centered, atheistic, solipsistic garbage. Suggestions are welcome. 

"To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee: A Review

To Kill A Mockingbird is the best book I have read this year, and maybe last year, hands down. I read it once in middle school, but didn't remember anything about it and therefore don't count that. Now, as an adult, I have to say this is IMMEDIATELY going in my top five of all time all time all time. Why don't more people talk about this book? INHALE deep breath ok here we go:

It's a simple story about a little girl, her brother, and her father in a 1930's Southern town. The father, Atticus, is a lawyer set to defend a young black man against a rape charge. Things get difficult for the family as the town's latent racism rises up. Amidst this backdrop, Scout and Jem (the brother and sister) do various growing-upish type things. There's a creepy neighbor in a creepy house.

This is a book about Truth with a capital "T", the kind that breaks your heart to learn, the good truths about people and the bad. Truths about losing your innocence, maintaining integrity at all costs, race, class, God, hypocrisy, family, and the South. It's actually pretty heavy on the Southern Gothic, which I thought was interesting after having just read Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor, the South's saint of gothicy-ness. Gotta tell you: Flannery's got nothing on Harper.

Interestingly enough, Flannery said this of To Kill A Mockingbird: "I think for a child's book it does alright. It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they're reading a child's book. Somebody ought to say what it is."


I think Flannery can sit on it and spin. This is no child's book, though it is told from the point of view of a child. Harper used the same elements as Flannery O'Connor: forms of the gothic, elements of grotesqueness through physical deformity, essential Southern-ness, and Christianity, but she does it better. Harper never tries to hide the fact that amidst all of this, there is goodness in the world. She doesn't beat you with ugliness to make her point. Flannery lets people off the hook at the end of her works: Harper never puts them on it. 

Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a comparison between the two novelists, but having just read O'Connor, these were the thoughts that beat me about the face and neck. Another thought: if you're suffering through a blazingly hot summer, maybe don't read back to back books about blazingly hot summers. Just a suggestion.

The only criticism I can find of this book falls into one of two camps: it's too idealistic, or it's too popular. My only response is: get a soul, you heartless snob.

The best promotion I can give this book is this: it made me cry (when the neighbors bring Atticus all the food after the trial). I've never cried reading a book. EVER.

Five stars out of your mom. And by five stars I mean roughly six hundred and twelve.

"Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor: A Review

Doesn't Flannery look nice? She has very nice hair, and a nice smile, and a nice necklace. I would look at that picture and expect anything she wrote to be very nice and gentile and polite. Maybe something that makes me want to sip a mint julep on the veranda. But NOOOO....

Straight up: this book is UNPLEASANT. In the way that your racist Uncle Morty with the bad teeth is unpleasant. Or in the way that sitting next to the smelly person on the subway and not being able to get up without drawing attention to the fact that you're repelled by the smelliness is unpleasant. Or in the way that listening to Britney Spears talk is unpleasant. It fills you with ickiness, but you can't stop reading it.

It's a collection of short stories, and they're all bizarre. Here's what you need to know about Flannery O'Connor to appropriately process her stories:

1. She was from the South, and wrote mostly Southern gothic stuff. Very dark.

2. She was Very Catholic in an un-ironic way, and had bunches to say about Southern Protestantism of the tent-reviving, Holy-Ghost-Hop variety.

3. She was never married, and since she was Very Catholic, it can be assumed that she never got any. Whether this perpetuated the dark Southern gothic thing, or whether the dark Southern gothic thing perpetuated the never getting any remains to be seen.

4. Her father died of lupus, and she was diagnosed with lupus and died at the age of 39. She lived with the disease for 13 years, expecting to die at any minute. 

So...her picture lies. IT LIES! Well maybe not all the way. I'm sure she was very nice, and would gladly have made me a mint julep. Unless Catholics can't have those, in which case she would have made me some sweet tea. She also owned peacocks, which means I've been making jokes to myself about how she was a "strange bird" for about a week. 

ANYWAY. Everything That Rises Must Converge is a collection of short stories. They all have carnival-like characters with odd physical deformities, and/or twisted family relationships that usually involve a mother, and/or racial tension, and/or religious bigotry, and/or morally impotent intellectuals. They're ACTION PACKED, let me tell you.

Basic outline: Self righteous intellectual (sometimes substituted by self-righteous racist person with lotsa religion) goes about being self-righteous and making everyone miserable. Something small but big to that person happens that makes them realize the Error Of Their Ways. They change their mind about intellectualism/art/religion to a more appropriate (Catholic) viewpoint. The stories are all pretty moralizing. Flannery sits in judgement on intellectual atheists and the Southern protestant whites equally. It seems like in her world, these were the two groups in power that were mismanaging the planet, and she was going to give them a PIECE OF HER MIND goshdarnit.

Everything That Rises Must Converge is a train wreck. It's perfectly wrought, the prose is beautiful, but it's judgmental and doesn't hide it's agenda. Gotta say, I agree with Flannery that annoying intellectuals and racist bigots don't have it all together, but whether you agree with her or not, you'll be exhausted by the end of this books. I'm off to pet a kitten, pick a daisy, eat a popsicle..anything that reminds me that we're not all awful people going to hell, and that there are some nice, pleasant things in the world.

Even if Flannery isn't one of them.

Three stars out of your mom. Mostly cause it made me feel icky.

In My Mailbox: Where I Get Ambitious

Book Confessions

I generally don't feel embarrassment. It's a perk that comes with being blissfully unaware of when I talk too loudly, say something stupid, wear something that doesn't match..basically, it's a perk of being totally socially oblivious. But I've noticed that when I talk to people about books and they discover what kind of books I read, they start APOLOGIZING. Ok for one thing, I'm not the book police (sadly) so you're not ACTUALLY accountable to me for your beach read. Stranger I just met. Of course, I hold deep-seated beliefs about the value of reading good literature as opposed to fluff, and about the value to teaching yourself when school is over. But I'm not going to vomit that all over you, so..why the justification? Stop it. 

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to find out how you guys feel about this phenomenon. Are you ever embarrassed by something you're reading? Do you hold the cover against your lap so other people don't see it? What are the title you have a twinge of guilt for carrying around? Or what are the books you reread that are totally outside the norm of what you usually read?

Mine:

Firstly, let's talk about Jurassic Park. When I was 14, I read everything Michael Crichton had published up to that point. I still re-read Jurassic Park whenever I'm feeling pseudo-sciencey. It's not often, but it's often enough to get strange looks from my husband when I pull it out...looks of the "you're reading that again that's so bizarre" variety.

Island of the Blue Dolphins. I re-read this once a year. It takes 20 minutes, and it's so oddly engrossing and it has a PUPPY and it's REAL. 

Anne of Green Gables. I don't read a lot of children's literature, but there it is. I love Anne Shirley. I want to be a red-head, and grow up on an idyllic Canadian island where people still bake real bread and have problems like "oh where's my brooch", or "that boy loves me too much" or "my sleeves aren't ruffly enough." That's life.

Ok, people. Spill the beans.

Insert Hop Pun

Welcome to the weekly hop, the book blogging world's version of the office Christmas party, but without the finger food or that awkward moment when the drunk guy from Accounting hits on you. And it's every week. And online. Ok, so it's nothing like that.

ANYWAY. This week, The Story Siren wants us to talk about what book we are dying to get our hands on. I have a few, so here's a small sampling:

1. The last volume of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. I found the first six volumes at a used book store, all in different bindings, but by the same translator. I need the last volume before I can start reading it because, honestly, I'm a little nuts.

2. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir and Fear and Trembling by Soren Kirkegaard. I'm trying to be more in interesting philosophy, and these are the two I'm really looking forward to if anyone would BLOODY PUT THEM ON BOOKMOOCH bleh.

3. F. Scott Fitzgerald's collected letters and correspondence. They had a copy at my favorite local book store, but it was like $30, and I kept waffling and finally decided to get it and went there and it was GONE. I'm gonna find the punk that bought it and...do nothing. But I really really want my own copy.

So that's it. What are you all looking forward to finding immediately?

"The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare" by G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare is a combination of a John Le Carre spy novel (I'm looking at you, Our Year in Books- unless I made up how you guys like John Le Carre, in which case I'm looking at the very interesting thing behind you), the Bible, Lewis Carroll, and a Monty Python movie.

It consists of a British policeman chasing down a group of anarchists. He joins the group as a spy and begins..spying. To say anything else (for reals) would be majorly spoiler-tastic, but suffice it to say: the novel is full of wild-goose chases, switches on switches, metaphysics, discourses on the nature of evil, theories on the nature of God, Christian symbolism- and it's really effing funny. Funny in that odd, stuffy British way. Funny in the way that the looks you'll get while you laugh out loud reading a Penguin Classic in public are funny.

I'll warn you: it's completely ridiculous and bizarre, but you'll love it anyway. It's also highly symbolic, so if you don't give it a close reading you might be frustrated by the ending. Really take into consideration what each of the seven members of the anarchist council (one for each day of the week) represents, and why Chesterton might consider them a modern nightmare. There is a physical representation of atheism, worship of power, pessimism, and worship of science. At the same time, this book isn't stupid Christian fiction, of which I'm afraid there is quite a bit.

All in all, it's a jolly good, thoughtful romp. One that makes you want to walk around smiling at strangers, lifting your top hat and swinging a cane while on your way to take a walk through a nice rose garden. While whistling. And contemplating the absurdity, but loveliness, of life.

Four stars out of your mom.

Defeating my Ten Most Intimidating Books

Broke and Bookish hosts a weekly top ten thinga-majig, and this week it is your top ten most intimidating reads. Having read War and Peace and The Count of Monte Cristo, I'm no longer intimidated by books just because they're big. I'm not really intimidate by any books anymore (hear that, Infinite Jest? I'm comin' for you, biotch). So here are my ten most intimidating books- that I roundly defeated with a sucker punch to the gut.

1. Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac. I found this super intimidating because it's French, and the man has a funny name, and I was VERY AWARE of what people think of that name automatically. I was therefore nervous about taking it in public. So maybe it wasn't the book that intimidated me so much as the jokes I was making about the guy's name. To myself. In my head. I'm actually a 13 year old boy.

2. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. This book scared me because I hate the movie, and because they don't speak ENGLISH. I have to read a whole book in non-english? Pants to that. But I did, and I actually didn't like it at all but hey. I win. I bent that book over and gave it one-for.

3. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. Because nasty pornography scares me, and that's what this is. It's not even sexy pornographic. It's just icky. And icky makes me nervous. Why did I finish it? Some misguided guilt complex about not finishing books. This book cured me of that complex.

4. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. For some reason, I always thought of Faulkner as very manly (said with chest pushed out and forehead wrinkled). Like Budweiser and hunting gear manly. When I was a 15 year old girl thinking about reading this, that freaked me out. Add to it the fact that it's supposed to be one of the most difficult books on the face of the universe, and I was a little nervous.

5. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. Really, just anything by Goethe. He's so GERMAN and THINK-Y and FAUST-Y.

6. The Histories by Herodotus.  I was assigned this book in a Greek history class in college, and it was pretty frightening in a I'm-not-an-80-year-old-professor way. But my professor made it really relevant and I enjoyed it thoroughly. My professor, who was a mustachio-d, balding British man from Oxford who carried a walking cane (no joke), refused to own a car, played records ON A RECORD PLAYER all day in his office, and made fun of how Americans don't know how to drink properly. I want to find him and put him on a charm bracelet and carry him around with me.

7. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. I dunno. She won a Nobel. And the print was reeaaalllyy tiny. Sometimes, that's enough.

8. Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I'm a 13 year old boy, for one. Also, see: tiny print. Also, see: it's about whaling. Also, I knew it was about man's inhumanity to man or something equally deep before I started, and I was afraid I wasn't going to "get" it.

9. Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I did battle with this book for six months. It's just so God awful and boring. I wasn't scared at first, but I grew more and more intimidated as our war raged on. It was a formidable opponent, but I eventually won during a math class.

10. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. ALL THE COMMAS DEAR GOD WHY. Now one of my favorites of all time.

Sooooo. Tell me. What book scared you senseless that you summarily defeated?

"My Antonia" by Willa Cather: A Review

She looks chilly. And zoned out, like she's wondering if she left the stove on.

How many of you have been out west? Like, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana sort of West- not like poser Texas west. Phsaw. Texas. Just kidding, please don't kill me Texans. You have guns.

I've spent some time in Wyoming where my mother used to live, and it's at once totally desolate and terrifying and alive and homey. The sky is so big you feel like it's sitting on your shoulders, trying to smother the prairie and anything on it. When the storms come, it looks like God is destroying the world. The American West is really wild, still, and it's refreshing to leave suburbia and go someplace where you could still die if you don't know how to light a fire. I have a soft spot for that place, and was looking forward to reading Willa Cather's My Antonia, one of the most famous books about pioneering west of the Mississippi.

My reaction, immediately after putting down the book: Uh, wow. Nebraska sounds cold. I wish I was cold. Maybe I'll go to the pool. Ohhh or get gelato. Pistachio gelato. Where are my shoes? Did the husband clean the litter box? Did I pay my speeding ticket? Why do I keep getting tickets? It's cause I'm brown, isn't it. Can't have anything to do with how fast I drive.

Suffice it to say, the book is meh. The imagery is fantastic. Cather's Nebraska (oddly) reminded me of Sex and the City (put down the stones for onecottonpickin second) in that her landscape was a character of its own, and the real characters just sort of seemed like guests in this tale about the prairie. While that's awesome, and Nebraska sounds nice, it makes you care less about Jim Burden and Antonia. Similar to how you ended up watching the last season of SATC not because you gave two sh**s about Carie and Big, but because you wanted to see what restaurant they were going to. (I have reached a new depth of shallow here, I know. Deal)

(Also, I love parentheticals.)

On a not-moronic note, Cather misses it with character depth. Antonia seems a sketched stereotype of a foreigner. Jim Burden is weak, has no will, seems driven by Cather instead of the other way around. Jim's grandparents and Antonia's father are sort of fascinating, but Cather doesn't seem to put as much effort into the young people. Worst of all, I just didn't care about Antonia. And her name is ON THE COVER. When she speaks, I found myself thinking, “Oh stop whining. Get back to Nebraska. Tell me about the red grass. It sounds fancy.” The pacing of the novel is also disconcerting. Cather skips whole swaths of 20 years between chapters without warning or really any reason. I know a lot of people look at that and think “ohhh, how MODERNIST of her” but I look at it and think “what the hell?” It's like she didn't want to tell the middle bits of the story, or stopped caring about her own book, and just skipped to the end so she could go have tea or something.

Overall, Cather's prose is simple and evocative, and I'll read her again. But when I close a book and my first thoughts are about gelato and cat litter, I can't say I loved it.

Three stars out of your mom.

Grass-hoppers.

Wax on. Wax off. Wax on. Wax off. Wait..what? Oh, are we hopping again? Word. Welcome, Oh Hallowed Visitors, to this week's book hop, hosted by Crazy For Books. Please, feel free to browse. Don't leave dirty fingerprints all over my stuff. I'm watching you.

The Crazy For Books lady asks that we name a few of our favorite authors this week, so here are my top-five-right-now-cause-I-can't-make-up-my-mind DAMN that's a lot of dashes also they're in no particular order also I love run on sentences not really:

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is probably the greatest American novel ever written ever ever did I say ever oh good.

2. Charlotte Bronte. Because she's the mature Bronte. She's the one who wrote real books while Anne scribbled with crayon on construction paper and got published, and Emily wrote about her equally creepy version of Edward Cullen. Charlotte is the Bronte for smart people.

3. Leo Tolstoy. Because he was an effing Count, and you can't get much cooler than that. Also, to write both Anna Karenina AND War and Peace in one lifetime means you had to be a cyborg super-genius. And who doesn't love a Count Cyborg Super-Genius? No one, that's who.

4. Charles Dickens. The most prolific social commentator on the planet. We need you, Charles! Come back! Our political pundits are not witty!

5. Virginia Woolf. Because no one writes sentences as beautifully as she does. I have a girl-crush on Virginia Woolf. I want to resurrect her and have tea with her and talk about how daffy James Joyce is.

Agree? Disagree?

"The Plague" by Albert Camus: A Review

Wasn't Camus a cutey? I wonder if he would object to the term cutey. Not very existential. Hm. Must come up with other term of condescending endearment for nice-looking dead Nobel prize winners. Note to self.

Ok, I'll start off by saying that I love Camus- I even have a ditty. It goes: Camus, Camus, I love you. That's all. And there's no real song. So maybe it's just a poem. In that vein, a haiku:

In life, you feared cars,
Wrote bleak prose, struggled with God.
Irony? Car crash.

I seem to be slightly obsessed with the idea that he was scared of cars his whole life, then rode in one to celebrate his Nobel win, and died in a car crash. It's so fitting. So absurd. AND NOW THE BOOK:

I'll give you three guesses as to what the book's about. Why NO, it's not about the swallows of Capistrano, you silly thing. Try again. No, it's not about the slow death of Satre in boiling oil. One more guess. Ok, I'll just tell you- it's about the plague. Like the old school, rats, ring-around-the-roses, BRING OUT YOUR DEAD plague. In a post-WWII town. The tale centers around the doctor who discovers that the disease has come to roost, and his friends, and how the town copes with its isolation after the powers that be close the city gates.

I didn't like it. I know, I just said that I love Camus, and I did really love The Stranger and The Fall, but the realist in me just couldn't get into The Plague. For one thing, I can't imagine people being struck with a deadly illness and immediately getting all pensive about the injustice of death and how we're all murderers in some existential way I don't really understand and sob sob woe. In my experience with quick illnesses that involve a lot of physical pain, all you're thinking about is how much you feel like shit. But maybe that's just me. Really, I'm basing this completely on that one time I had appendicitis, so I could be totally wrong. Maybe people dying of a horrible and quick disease who are in and out of consciousness and constantly hallucinating have time to think Very Deep Thoughts. And, to be honest, it was just sorta boring. Plague comes. Rats die. Then people die. People miss other people who die. The end.

I know Camus resented being called an existentialist, and I can understand why. Existentialists that I've read tend to be really arrogant in their knowledge that we're all sooo alone and that life is sooo absurd and why don't we just end it aaallll. But Camus isn't like that. He does believe that there is no God, and that life is so absurd, but where he departs from the Existentialists is that he doesn't believe we should just end it all- he believes that the absurdity of live and our (in his mind) loneliness in the universe is all the more reason to love life, and be kind to each other. You can tell that he wants to believe in God, but he just can't convince himself of it because of the suffering he sees, which he embodies in the plague in this book. The idea that there is no God because bad stuff happens is immature and childish in my book, but Camus struggles with it so honestly and with such sincerity that I don't begrudge him the doubt. Though this book wasn't my favorite of his, I do highly recommend his work, no matter where you stand on the God thing.

Three stars out of your mom.

What is a Classic?

What makes a book a classic?

Classic literature is a difficult animal to describe. It's not like young adult fiction, where the definition is in the title. It's also not like paranormal urban fantasy romance, whose definition is: excrement. It has, inherent within the concept, a certain snobbery. This book qualifies as being classic, while this book does not, and is therefore less important- or is it? What is the definition of classic literature?

To begin with, it's not classicAL literature. ClassicAL literature is that associated with the classicAL Greek period. While we may read some classicAL stuff on this blog (I am planning to read The Odyssey this summermaybemaybenot), that's not the focus.

To begin with, let's talk about what classics are not: firstly, they are not all books by dead white guys. GASP HORROR SHOCK ISN'T THAT THE NAME OF THE BLOG yes it is jeez calm down. Ok, so a lot of classics are by dead white males, but that isn't what makes a book a classic, or my great uncle Ebenezeer's book about garden spiders written in 1972 would be a classic. I mean it is, but not according to most people. Classics aren't just limited to books we read in school, either. The terms “classic” and “western canon” are often used interchangeably, but I would argue that that is a fallacy. Not all classics belong to the western canon- I'm thinking most prominently of the Epic of Gilgamesh and The Tale of Genji. Again, a lot of classics we'll read here are part of the western canon, but not all because that's inaccurate.

Ok, so what is a classic? I don't frickin' KNOW get off my back. Just kidding. No, I'm not kidding. No I really am kidding. (Pause for Eddie Izzard, from whom I stole that joke):

Anyway, there's no actual definition, so I'll give you mine: a classic is a piece of literature that is artistically well done, contributes to the progress of human thought in a real way, and is timeless. Italo Calvino says it better (obvs) than I can- he says “A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” A classic speaks to us over the years that separate us from the author because the themes are so relatably human in nature. We can relate to Milton's struggle with God's nature in Paradise Lost, even though most of us aren't Puritanical, British, blind old sexist pigs. His questions are still relevant. We can relate to Dickens and his frustration with the evils of impotent bureaucracy and the soul-crushing weight of poverty. We know what it's like to instantly hate someone upon meeting them and then feel the foolishness of that judgement, so we still read Pride and Prejudice.

Caveat: Simply relating to a book isn't enough. Don't forget about the “well-written” bit. That's just as important. A classic should have striking prose and originality is some aspect of its execution. The Moderns have both of these things, which is why I have a girl-crush on Virginia Woolf.

I would add that a classic is a representation of the period of art or creative thought in which it was published. This allows for the existence of “modern classics,” or books which aren't actually old, but are recognizable as timeless because they perfectly capture the time in which they were written or the thoughts of that writer-as-artist. Ishiguro's Remains of the Day is a perfect example of this, as is Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings or even Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale. An author doesn't actually have to be dead for his work to be recognizable as a classic.

So that's my working definition of classic literature: a book that is timeless (but not necessarily old), excellently written, and contributes to the Great Conversation of human thought (to borrow a phrase from Robert Hutchins).

What do you think? Do you disagree? What is your definition?

Poetry of Sappho, Translated by Mary Barnard: A Review

Sappho is (was?) a Greek lyric poet from around 600 B.C., most well known in frat houses as the originator of the term lesbian. She wrote about the ladies, she was from the island of Lesbos..there ya go. I picked up a volume of her poetry because the title of Salinger's Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters is taken from one of her poems. Plus, she's like, old and stuff. And I don't read enough poetry. And hers are short. Japenese-haiku-about-a-cherry-blossom-short. WIN!

Anywoot, I do recommend the Mary Barnard translation. Sappho's poems are simple, witty, and some of them are fairly sexual, and most translators make them all flowery and Victorian and weird. The Barnard translation is straightforward. I do want to point out here that there's no actual evidence that she was a lesbian. She writes about loving girls, but it could very well be in a BFF sort of way, at least from my reading, and I don't really care what some raunchy scholar thinks, so there. Also, only a few of her poems are eye-brow raising, and even those aren't explicit and they're definitely gender neutral. Most of the poems are just nice and beautiful and pithy. For example:

If you will come
I shall put out 
new pillows for you to rest on


That's it. At first glance, I was all, pshaw, that reads like a hotel billboard. But then I sort of let it sink, and visualized a woman puttering about a room, making it nice for some unnamed loved one coming home, and was overcome by how she captured that whole bustling energy in these teeny words. Another one I really like:

That was different
My girlhood then
was in full bloom
and you-


And you WHAT? WHAT did he do/what was he/WHAT?! It's like the fragment of an argument, a glimpse of a woman's vulnerability that's just really great. And this is a fragment from a longer poem:

Some say a cavalry corps,
some infantry, some, again,
will maintain that the swift oars


of our fleet are the finest 
sight on dark earth; but I say
that whatever one loves, is.


If you're not that into poetry because you find it difficult, I really recommend Sappho. Over 2,500 years, she still speaks to the really simple moments that make up life, and to the emotions that everyone has felt for all time.

And, she might have liked the ladies. Do with that what you will. But only if you say "ladies" like Lady's Man from SNL. To help you with that, here's an instructional video. Uh, if you're at work, this might not be kosher as there is mention of something called "the goods", though I imagine you'll only get in trouble if your boss is a) the Pope or b) nope just the Pope.




Four stars out of your mom- though, I have to say, I feel goofy starring a poet from almost three thousand years ago. I can hear her scoffing. Pshaw, she says, I don't need your stars. I have a HARP! An effing HARP! I'm on ancient pottery! I WIN! And she's right. She does win.

On Being Surprised/ The Hop

In my never-ending quest to feel like less of a literary anomaly in how I read books, I present a question: are you ever surprised by how much you love a book?

I don't mean closing a particularly difficult book and thinking, "you know, I actually really liked that." I mean having negative feelings for a book after you finish, and then finding yourself months or years later defending it, and realizing you don't just like it- you LOVE it.

This happened to me most recently with Albert Camus. I'm reading The Plague, the last of his works that I haven't read, and I suddenly recalled an incident in which I found myself encouraging the husband to read The Stranger- which I intensely disliked when I read it. I disagreed with its philosophy, I disliked the preachiness of its existentialism, and I didn't like the main character (side note: I don't have to like a main character to enjoy a novel, I just really disliked this one especially).

But it grew on me like a weird mold. I am now covered in Camus-love. I still disagree with the philosophical bent of his novels- both the ideas and the methodology of their presentation- but I have attached myself to his work in a way I can't explain. The prose is fantastic. You can literally feel Camus struggling with his world-view. It's fascinating. Maybe I'm becoming less judgmental as a reader as I become older, or more discerning (or less discerning? That doesn't make sense). I don't know.

Has this happened to you? Have you gone from hating a novel or an author to unexpectedly carving a them-shaped room in your heart for them? What caused the change- were you even conscious of it?

Also- if you're visiting from the Book Hop, welcome. Per the hop's guidelines this week, a brief explanation of why I started blogging: I started reading book blogs and realized most of them were romance/ young adult/ paranormal/ enter-synonym-for-bad-books. I realized there was a dearth of book blogs about classics or literary fiction, and those that did exist tended to be a little self-important. And not funny.

So, I combined all that to make an un-important, sorta funny, blog about books that are actually great. Well, that Very Important and Literary people say are great. Whether they are actually great or not- stick around and I'll be sure to let you know my opinion. Though it may be hard to tell what my opinion actually is because we're so sarcastic around here. Just kidding. Not really. See what I did there? ANYWAY, welcome to Dead White Guys! Have a cookie! I recommend white chocolate chip.