The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)

I think the cover of this book is what made me pick it up off the shelf at Indigo last week. The dust jacket is gorgeous--elegant really.

I've been slowly sampling Hemingway over the last six months or so. I will admit, I had an aversion to his writing after reading some of his short stories in my first year English courses. I was convinced that I hated him, but then I read A Moveable Feast and I changed my mind. 

I really liked The Sun Also Rises. The story is simple, but not simplistic. An American living in Paris (I love anything set in Paris) goes to Spain with a few friends to fish and to see the bull fights. They drink plenty of wine (so much that as I read I started to wish I had a bottle), sit in cafes and, for the most part, live a life of leisure. 

The introduction notes that Hemingway had recently read, and was influenced by Scott F.Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby when he wrote The Sun Also Rises. I definitely noticed the similarities in character-types and style as I read. I was left with a similar feeling at the end of both books, although I greatly preferred this one. 

The center of the novel is Brett, a somewhat helpless party girl who flutters from the arm of one man to another. Almost every man we meet in the novel is either in love with Brett or attracted to her. She's the archetype I've seen in so many 1920s/30s detective novels and black and white movies. I've grown to hate that archetype. Never in my real life have I ever encountered that woman. For such a central character, she came across as underdeveloped.

The dialogue, which was natural and humorous more than made up for the flatness of Brett. This is definitely one of the better Hemingway works I've read.  

In My Mailbox Today: To America With Love: Letters from the Underground

Abbie Hoffman fascinates me. His politics are not my politics. Yet, in a way, I admire him. His books capture my imagination and inspire me. Hoffman, an American activist and so called "Yippie," specialized in street theatre (sometimes called guerrilla theatre) in the 1960s and 70s. In 1974, after getting busted for drugs, Hoffman went underground to avoid jail time.

I discovered Abbie Hoffman's work about a year and a half ago when I read Revolution for the Hell of It. I followed it up a few months later with Steal This Book and, shortly after, The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman. I'm currently waiting for another book, Square Dancing in the Ice Age to arrive. 

Harry Potter's Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures (John Granger)

Harry Potter's Bookshelf is an unauthorized study of literary influences in the Harry Potter books.  The author, John Granger, has published a number of other books on Harry Potter. 

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I picked up Harry Potter's Bookshelf. What I got was a crash-course in select areas of English literature--enough material to fill an entire English course crammed into about 300 pages. 

Granger bases his analysis on  Canadian literary critic, Northrop Frye's, iconological school. In the introduction, Granger explains that he will look at "the surface," "the moral," "the allegorical" and "the anagogical or spiritual"(xv). 

In the remainder of the book, Granger ties the Harry Potter series to the genres of the detective story, the schoolboy story (think Enid Blythe), the gothic, Jane Austen and post-modernism. He identifies links to The Canterbury Tales,  the Bible, Charles Dickens, alchemy, and much more, all while utilizing Frye's iconological framework.  

Although I enjoyed this book immensely, I found "the anagogical" aspect of Granger's analysis a little too abstract, like listening to an English prof. pull at tiny details to build a theory that may or may not be true, or have been intended by the author. 

However, I don't outright disagree with any of Granger's arguments and analysis. Reading, after-all, is intertextuality.  The interpretation of a text falls on the reader and every reader will experience and interpret a text differently based on the other texts (books/ideas) that they have engaged with and experienced in the past. 

Harry Potter's Bookshelf takes analysis of the Harry Potter series to a whole new level, but its clearly written, not for the average reader, but for those who study English. I wouldn't, however, discourage anyone with an interest in Harry Potter from giving this book a try. 

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Robin Sloan)

I accidentally walked into a bookstore on Monday and I accidentally bought some books. What can I say, they were having a promotion?! If I spent $40 they would give me a gift card for $10 off my next purchase. Not only was I stuck at the mall waiting for a bus, I was also mildly depressed over my continual lack of a love life. When I'm lonely I buy books. When I'm depressed I buy books. Of course, I also buy books when I'm happy. 

Anyway, this book: Mr Penubra's 24-Hour Bookstore. I hardly read the back cover in the store. The seemingly unending bookshelves on the cover and the title were enough to peak my interest. I read the whole thing today between classes and on my bus ride home. I loved it. 

I loved it, not only because it's about books, but because it bridges the gap between the traditional paper book and modern technology. Robin Sloan sums things up perfectly near the end of the novel when one of the character remarks that the internet is the modern day Venice. For those who don't know, in the 15th and 16th centuries Venice was one of the largest publishing centers in the world. (See my review on Bound in Venice). 

The plot is simple, but rich. Clay Jannon, after loosing his job as a website designer and marketer for an upstart bagel company when the Great Recession hits, finds a job in a bookstore. He works the night shift, but never seems to make any sales. Patrons are few, and when they do come, they come alone, don't pay, and only take specific books from a mysterious section of the shop, which are in code. It's not long before Clay gets curious and begins to uncover the details of a literary cult. 

In My Mailbox Today: Little Women

I already own a copy of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, but mine is a somewhat battered 1950s hard-cover edition. I had toyed with the idea of buying a good condition vintage copy, but when I saw this Puffin edition, I decided I loved it too much to pass it up. 

Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

The ending of this book took my breath away. I loved One Hundred Years of Solitude, but Love in the Time of Cholera is just as good, if not better. I don't know whether I should be crying or smiling! This is a book about love; it's about a woman, Fermina, who marries a good man, falls in love, and lives a relatively happy life. It's about a man, Florentino, who waits all his life suffering in unrequited love to try and win back the sweetheart of his youth. 

Unlike in One Hundred Years of Solitude, politics are far in the background. State violence and politics are there, but they aren't nearly as pronounced as they are in One Hundred Years of Solitude. This book is shorter and it deals with far fewer characters, but it's just as rich. 

One of my favourite scenes in this book--if you read it you'll understand why I found it so comical--is Fermina's wedding night. Fermina's new husband, expects her to be shy, and she is at first, but then she begins to examine his anatomy for the first time. After observing her husband's penis "with an interest that was beginning to seem more than scientific" she comments  on "how ugly it is," and how she thinks "it has too many things on it." Her husband agrees! When I was reading I laughed out loud because it's not he kind of love-making scene I expected when I first began to read it. 

I'm not sure whether I found Florentino, the man who waited all his life for another chance with Fermina, entirely tragic and romantic, or pathetic. As romantic as it sounds for a man to wait fifty-one years for a second chance with a teenage sweetheart, at many points in the novel I just wanted him to let go and get on with his life. 

I won't spoil the ending here. I will say, however, that this is one of the most beautiful novels about love that I've read in a long time. 

In My Mailbox Today: the Everyman's Library Edition of War and Peace

I deliberated over whether to buy this edition of War and Peace for over a month. I finally ordered it a few days ago and it arrived today. It's beautiful, and as with all Everyman's Library editions, the books are sturdy and pleasant to hold.

    

Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Red Harvest (Everyman's Library)

Dashiell Hammett is one of the most memorable authors of detective fiction from the early 20th century. I'm sure I've said this before, but I LOVE Everyman's Library editions. I love the old editions and I love the new editions. I pretty much love the look and feel of any book printed by Everyman's Library. I bought this book because a) it's an Everyman's Library, and b) the first novel included is The Maltese Falcon. 

Humphrey Bogart fans will know that in 1941, he starred as private detective Sam Spade in the most well known film adaptation of The Maltese Falcon. As I read the novel, I couldn't shake the image of Bogart from my interpretation of Sam Spade. For readers who don't know the story, The Maltese Falcon is about a private detective who is drawn into a case involving a mysterious gold and jeweled falcon statuette after his partner is murdered. What surprised me the most about this novel was discovering that much of dialogue used in the 1941 film was pulled directly from the pages of the book. As the introduction to this edition notes, Hammett was known for his excellent dialogue. 

The Thin Man is also about a private detective, but in this case Nick Charles is retired. He, inadvertently, is drawn into a murder investigation after the secretary and former lover of an friend is found murdered and his friend--an inventor who cannot be found--is accused. I enjoyed this novel as much, if not more, than The Maltese Falcon. 

The final novel in this edition is Red Harvest, the bloody story of a city run by gangsters and crooked cops. The private detective, who never reveals his name, is given a $10 000 cheque to clean up the city of Personville, often called Poisonville by its residents. Poisonville is a mining town. The narrator explains--and he does a lot of explaining in this novel--that the mine-owner used thugs and crooked cops to crush organized labour and drive out the IWW. When the smoke cleared he'd lost his grip on the city. While I like the premise of this novel, I found it lacking credibility at times and a few of the characters seemed either like cardboard figures or seemed exaggerated. Red Harvest, while not bad, is the weakest of the three novels in this edition. 

These three novels were my introduction to Dashiell Hammett. A little searching online revealed that Hammett published two more novels and some short fiction. Although you can't tell from his writing, he was apparently a political activist with an interest in civil rights. He was a member of the Communist Party (USA), was blacklisted and was forced to testify before the House of Un-American Activities Committee, although they took no further action against him. 

The Norse Myths (Kevin Crossley-Holland)

This book was sent to me for Christmas by an American friend. It's not the kind of book I would usually pick up, but it was a good one. The Norse Myths contains 31 traditional stories retold by author Kevin Crossley-Holland. The book includes a thorough introduction and extensive notes on each story, explaining what versions he chose to draw from and the possible meanings of symbols and events. In some cases, he even disputes the link of Norse myths to the mythology of other cultures.

I was surprised, when reading a myth called "The Treasures of the Gods," to come across a scene in which a god by the name of Thor receives a golden hammer created by dwarfs. I'm not a fan of superhero movies, but I do know the basic story of Thor.

In these Norse myths, dwarfs hold powerful magic and are talented metal smiths. The dwarfs create unbreakable chains, decorative armbands, golden hair, and in one myth, a necklace.

I found the myth about the necklace problematic. Perhaps ancient Norse myths are not the place to be critiquing the treatment of women or reading critically, but I couldn't help it. In "The Necklace of Brisings," when the goddess Freyja is so weak as to be "dazzled" by a golden necklace created by dwarfs and agrees to sleep with the dwarfs for four nights in order to obtain it, I just shook my head. Later on in the myth, Freyja makes a deal with her husband (that she will stir up an unending war) in order to get the necklace back. The image of a woman who would sell her body and the lives of others for a piece of gold is  disturbing.

I was even more disturbed by "Skirnir's Journey," a myth in which Freyer falls in love with the Giantess Gerd. He sends his friend Skirnir to fetch Gerd, "whether her father likes it or not." Freyer never even considers the feelings of Gerd. When Skirnir arrives and Gerd refuses to go with him, he threatens her until she agrees to come and marry Freyer.

There were some stories in here that I did like and wasn't disturbed by. "Lord of the Gallows," for instance, is a fascinating story about Obin, who goes through, among other things, death in order to gain 18 pieces of knowledge.

"The Mead of Poetry" is a  Romantic story, in its own way. After a being fashioned from the spit of the gods is murdered, his blood is taken and mixed into a mead, which, when drunk, provides the divine gift of poetry.

Although many of the stories in this volume left me with an uncomfortable feeling--the same as I get from reading certain ancient Greek myths where misogyny and violence are common-place --it was a worthwhile I read. Any lover of mythology would enjoy this book.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

I own two copies of One Hundred Years of Solitude. One is a paperback that I got for Christmas from my aunt, and the other is a library discard first (english) edition from 1970. When I received the paperback for Christmas, I knew it was time to finally read it. 

Set in Columbia, One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of a family and Macando, the town they founded. The real and surreal blend and become inseparable in this novel. Women can float away with sheets and children can be born with pig tails just as easily as men and women fall in love, and war shatters a peaceful existence. 

Macando begins as a tiny village cut off from the outside world and visited only by gypsies who bring flying carpets, ice, and magnets. As time passes, the outside world intrudes, bringing outside laws and conflicts. 

The brutal civil war that politically divides the town and takes Colonel Aureliano Buendia  far from home severs the village forever from its history of self-governance and self-reliance. In many ways, Colonel Aureliano is the most tragic of all the characters. He represents something real--he is the man (or woman) who fought and still fights against oppressive regimes for the right to collective, local power only to discover that the governments and corporations are stronger. 

Eventually, Macando becomes a "banana republic" of sorts. A fruit company moves in, builds fences, brings foreigners and exploits the local workers. When the workers seek justice, the company claims that they are not actually employees. One of my favourite lines in the book also happens to be one of the saddest and most frustrating (frustrating because it rings too true): "by decision of the court it was established and set down in solemn decrees that the workers did not exist." 

Eventually, when it rains for six years straight (a surreal plot point) the fruit company abandons the muddy town and leaves it and its residents to succumb to decline. 

There's so much more I could say about this book, but I'm still processing it all. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece and fully deserving of all the praise it has received over the years. Macando could be any town in South America, or in the world really.