It has been a while.  Forgive me.

I just looked at my list to see what books I needed to buy next and it seems that the chronology has already been mixed up.  It seems that Mrs.  Dalloway and The Sound and the Fury come later than I first realized.  I’m not really sure how I got them confused except that maybe I took a list of upcoming books to Half Price Books to find them and the order got confused on that list.  So I was supposed to read A Passage to India first but that’s ok.  I’ve read it now and I can review it.  I have also read the books between it and Mrs.  Dalloway so I’ll just repost that one in the order it should have been read (I’ve decided to repost the blogs for the books I’ve already read as they come up chronologically so that I can follow the flow of the literature when I look back).  So for this time the order will be:  A Passage to India, An American Tragedy, The Great Gatsby, and Mrs. Dalloway.

I loved A Passage to India.  I have been thinking for the past few days why I liked it so much and I think it’s because I feel like I really got what the author was trying to say.  I have to admit that with a lot of these books I can read them and appreciate the story but I don’t feel like I’m getting the underlying themes and messages.  But this book was much more simple and straightforward with it’s themes (at least the ones I caught) and that definitely helps with my enjoyment.

This is the second book I’ve read by E.M. Forster and I really appreciate the way he develops his characters.  In fact it took him about a third of this book to get to any kind of rising action.  I was beginning to think nothing was ever going to happen.  But when the action started taking place, I was very greatful for the strong character development.

In my view, the main theme of this book was the racial tension that was taking place.  There was lots of racism or at least prejudice in this book and it was a new perspective for me to see it outside of the black/white conflict that you generally see.  Instead conflicts centered around English/Indians and Muslims/Hindus within the Indian society.  The way that people wanted to be together and be true friends but they just couldn’t because society would not allow it was very interesting and sad to me.  I’m trying to be as vague as possible because I want other people to read this oneand I don’t want to ruin it.

A second theme that came up that was really interesting to me was that of death and the author’s philosophy of death.  The most gripping example of this for me was when one character was trying to tell another character than a friend had died and the first character thought it was a joke.  At this point the character that knows of the death (an atheist) comes to a realization that even if a person has died, if you don’t know about it, it is as if the person is still alive.  Which is kind of like a type of immortality.  I probably didn’t explain that very well but I was trying to be vague about the characters.  Anyway, to me it was in one way a new perspective that I hadn’t really thought about before but makes sense, but in another way it is sad that this person had to grasp at something to find immortality because there was no hope for their life after death.

In conclusion I very much enjoyed this story and really felt like I understood what Forster was trying to say.

Ok, so I’ve decided to change my reading order up a little.  I’ve decided that alphabetical order makes no sense at all.  Instead I’m moving to chronological order by publish date.  I plan to be much more able to see how literature developed over the amount of time that the list covers.  Thus, I start with Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.

It is taking me much longer to read the books lately since I don’t sit around and do nothing for eight hours a day anymore.  But I’ve decided that taking more time has it’s positives and negatives.  On the negative side, it is much easier to get the flow and follow the story line of a book if you are reading it all in one day.  On the positive side, I have a much better ability to think about the book and form opinions as I am reading it over a longer time period.

Based on the first few pages of this book, I thought it was going to be very similar to something written by Jane Austin or Charlotte Bronte or one of those types.  And it was similar in that it is set in a similar time period and location.  But Woolf is not so much a dreamer as the others I think.  This was a much more realistic novel.  I can relate to the feelings of many of the characters.  It involves thinking about, “what might have beens” and missed chances.  I know that my life could easily have gone down that road.  But at the same time, I think Woolf has a very judgmental tone throughout the novel.  Granted, the novel is supposed to expose the characters and their flaws, but she is different than other authors I have read who have tried it.  I don’t really know how to explain it, but she just feels like she has an air of superiority about her.

Another thing about the book is that it follows one person for a while and kind of just follows their whole train of thought.  It’s interesting but rather confusing at times when something is happening in the plot and all of a sudden there is a flash back or a random thought so that you have to think about what is happening in reality and what is happening in the person’s head.  I think I would have to say that I didn’t really like the book as I was reading it, but looking back now, it was pretty good.

Next I move on to The Sound and the Fury.  I’ve heard it’s almost impossible to read, so we’ll see how it goes.

So just one book to post on this time. I finished The Big Sleep today. I found it quite good. Easier reading than the other books lately and shorter and interesting. All around a good read. It’s about a private eye who is working a blackmail case for a rich guy. I must admit I didn’t figure out the mystery before detective Marlow, but I would have felt very smart if I had. Next is Blood Meridian, the last of my “B” books. I read the first chapter and found it hard to follow and violent, but I have hope because I talked to someone, about a year ago, who was reading it and he loved it so we’ll see.

Ok, so the reading tapered off for a while and the posting tapered off even longer.  Now that the TV is gone from the house the reading has picked back up.  I actually finished The Bridge to San Luis Rey and On the Road before the baby was born and I had started The Blind Assassin.

I suppose I’ll start with On the Road since it is the one I finished first.  We actually listened to it in the car when we went on a couple of trips.  It had some good parts and some slow parts.  The end started getting a little boring but overall I thought it was ok.  I feel that I might have enjoyed it more if (1)I had not taken so much time to get through it with long stretches of not listening to it and (2)if I had read it instead of listening to it.  My thought on the main theme is that man is a constant wanderer, never satisfied with his present state.

Next I finished the Bridge of San Luis Rey.  I was a little biased against this one going in because I had tried to watch the movie that came out a few years ago and was bored to tears by it.  But the book wasn’t bad.  It among the shorter books on the list so that helped too.  It is basically about this guy who witnesses a bridge collapse that kills five people.  Then he tries to find out about their lives and why God would choose these specific people to die.  All of their lives intertwine but are very different at the same time.  Interesting but either I don’t remember or I don’t get what his final conclusion was…that’s what I get for waiting so long to post about it.

Next I read the Blind Assassin.  I really enjoyed this one.  At first I was a little confused by it.  There is a lot going on.  It is written by this old woman who is remembering back on the life of her and her sister.  So there is the story of what is happening to her in her old age and the story of her childhood.  But that’s not all.  Also throughout the book there are sections that when put together are the book that her sister wrote and was published shortly after her apparent suicide.  But the book is about a couple who is meeting together and having an affair and they are also writing a story of their own.  And there are also little newspaper articles and the like interspersed in it.  But once I got the hang of what was really interesting.  The end was particularly good, a couple of good twists.  Some I picked up on quicker than others.

And finally, I finished Brideshead Revisited a week or so ago.  I enjoyed it too.  The reviews of it described is as a funny book and it wasn’t really that.  From what I understand, it was more literary comedy like a comedy of errors, where the main characters keep messing their lives up and making bad decisions.  Not really funny to me, but whatever.  Anyway, it was an interesting read with really nice character development.

I’m working on The Big Sleep now and will hopefully finish it pretty soon since it is a short one.  I plan to update a little more frequently but there is much going on so we’ll just have to see.

I just finished The Berlin Stories and I enjoyed it very much. I’ve always been fascinated by World War II Germany and this book is set close to that time. It is actually set in the time just before WWII and describes much of the political unrest and mentalities of people in Berlin at the time. This is actually two books within a book. The first book is written about the author’s experiences with one main character and the second book is a collection of stories about various people he came in contact with while in Berlin. The characters are based on real people that the author met while in Germany and he does a great job of developing them. My only real criticism is that in the second book it is almost as if you are starting a new book every 50 pages or so. New characters and situations are constantly being introduced and if I had not been reading it in my 7 hour a day fashion, I would probably have been pretty lost trying to keep up with everyone.

Water for Elephants wasn’t actually on my list. Jake got it for me for Christmas. It was written in the 21st century so it couldn’t have been on my list. I have been reading it in the evenings before bed and I was completely taken in by it starting with the first chapter. It is a very interesting story. The plot flows well, the characters are well developed and there is a great mixture of comedy and drama. It was also quite a bit lighter and less intense than most of the books I’ve been reading on my list. I highly recommend it.

At-Swim-Two-Birds was among the more unenjoyable books I’ve read.  I couldn’t tell you what the first half of the book is about.  I tried to look up Cliff’s notes and Spark notes but unfortunately they don’t have any for this one.  I looked up a brief synopsis and basically it’s a fictional autobiographical work about a student who is writing a story about an author who is writing a story about an author whose characters start to write a story about him because they feel they are being mistreated by him in his story.  Yeah.  So add to that the fact that this is written by an Irish guy who uses Irish lingo so there is at least one word per sentence that I don’t understand.  And the book has no quotation marks in it.  I finally started to catch on at the end but it totally wasn’t worth the effort.

Beloved was pretty good.  I didn’t really know what to expect with this one.  I knew it was about black people, that it won a Nobel prize and that a lot of kids have to read it in school.  Of course I went to a private school so we didn’t really read about black people so much.  Anyway, the story was a little hard to follow in places because it would jump back and forth quite a bit in flash backs that weren’t in chronological order, but apparently that is one of the major criteria for being on this list because it seems that most of the books I’ve read so far have that characteristic.  It was kind of hard to get into the mysticism and superstition but once I did, the story was quite enjoyable.  It has come to my attention in reading these last couple of books that I’m not getting near what I should out of these books.  What I mean by that is, if I were taking a class or even really taking time to think about symbolism, themes, etc.  I’m sure I’d get a lot more out of my reading.  But I think I like it this way.  Then if I want to I can go back and really study the books I enjoyed the most and I can at least have a semi-intelligent conversation about the rest of them.

Next on the list is the Berlin Stories.  I haven’t started it yet so I’m not really sure what to expect.

I finished Atonement and The Assistant so here are my opinions.

I thought Atonement was excellent!  I really enjoyed the story and was drawn in the entire time.  I’m going to try to even better than normal not to give anything away in case you want to go see the movie.  David and I went to see it and I thoroughly enjoyed it as well.  I thought they did a really good job staying true to the book.  And that’s really all I can say without giving anything away.  But it has been one of my favorites so far.

The Assistant took a little more getting into.  It’s a plight of the immigrant story and I usually don’t care for that type as much.  But it ended up being quite good.  The major theme in it was the things people hide from the other people in their lives.  I thought the ending was a little weak, but overall a pretty good book.

And finally, Animal Farm.  I actually read this one a few years back, but I figured since I am doing this blog I should write about all 100 books on the list.  This is a book that many more people are familiar with compared to a lot of the other books on the list.  It kind of has emotional significance to me that has nothing to do with the book itself.  I remember reading it at home in Little Rock the first time I stayed in my room after it had been converted into a nursery.  It kind of marked a change in the way home is for me I suppose.  But anyway, as far as the book itself, I thought it was really interesting how Orwell could fit so much significance into such a short book.  It is one of those that can be really entertaining and insightful through several different stages of development.

I’ve started At-Swim-Two-Birds and I must admit, I’m having a really hard time getting into it.  First off, it’s an Irish writer and I don’t understand a lot of the terminology he uses and secondly it’s written from the point of view of this college student who is always in and out of a story he is developing in his head.  So I haven’t caught on to figuring out what is actually happening to him and what is part of his story.  But it’s supposed to be really funny so we’ll see if I can make it through.

I just went through Half-Price Books and bought a bunch of books off of my list, so if anyone is planning to buy me one, let me know and I’ll send you a new list of the books I have.

That’s all for now.  I will update again if I ever get through At-Swim-Two-Birds

Well, I finished Appointment in Samara and Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret. Two completely different books, but I really enjoyed them both.

Appointment in Samara is a book set during prohibition and I really felt like it was written for men. In fact, when I was reading it, I could just picture myself eavesdropping on a smoking room full of men with one telling this story. It’s not that it was particularly graphic or profane, just kinda like guy gossip. The main problem I have come across with this list of books is that so many of them are sad. I guess that how a lot of critics define good literature. Which is one of the reasons it was so nice to get something different like Are You There.

Are You There is a book written for pre-teens about coming of age and starting to make your own decisions, becoming independent, etc. It was fun to look back on that time in my life and see how many similarities and differences I could identify. It also reminded me of a lot of the struggles that my youth girls are going through. (And it’s always nice to get finished with one of my books in a couple of hours.)

Next up I am going to skip down to Atonement so I can go see the movie this weekend. I ordered The Assistant and At-Swim-Two-Birds as well. None of them are particularly long so hopefully I can finish them all in the next couple of weeks. To be honest, my favorite part is going to buy new books and anticipating what I will be reading in the future.