How to be a better reader

Tags

rant

Look at this lady taking advantage of every second of spare time. Wish I could do that.

This is not a carefully outlined, step-by-step guide to better reading, but rather a question, How do you become a better reader?

Life is a stubbornly busy thing. We barely have time to eat and sleep, not to mention dedicate any sufficient amount of it on hobbies. I’ve always dreamt of a job where I could just sit and read all day, and read anything I wanted, mind you. Unfortunately the reality of things does not always line up with our desires, and I find myself pressed for time every day. I have vowed to myself to try my best and read 52 books by the end of the year, which of course amounts to a book a week. For some of you, experienced bloggers, that number might seem insignificant. After all, I’ve seen some finishing their year with up to 350 titles. But for me it is a great number indeed. You see, last year I read only about sixteen books, if I remember correctly. That means I am aiming at reading over three times more books this year over last – a feat requiring courage in my books.

I cannot read fast. In fact, I refuse to do it. I’ve tried speed-reading, but I don’t see why anybody would want to do that outside of forced-upon textbooks. When it comes to reading, I want to enjoy every word, ponder on the meanings behind syntax, hear the music of author’s narrative in my head. You simply cannot do that when skimming pages for key words and filling up the rest with your own logical bridges. And that is what speed reading is all about – focusing on key words to understand the general idea behind the story line and try to guess the rest. I envy people who can do both the speed and the comprehension, but it equals to a superpower in my world. I cannot read a hundred pages in an hour, and don’t expect me to be done in even two hours. My mind wonders too much, my eyes jump back to a particularly interesting paragraph and try to absorb it again, my fingers search for the meaning of every unknown word. How am I to improve my speed without compromising the enjoyment from reading?

Then it all comes down to the opportunity. I try to read on my fifteen-minute rides on the train, or catch about an hour of quality time with a book before bed. When else can I take some time to flip through favourite pages? Even now, as I’m writing this post, I wonder if instead I should be spending the last half an hour before I have to leave for work reading. But there are too many things to do. Reading is not the only hobby I have. Actually I should probably dedicate a post specifically to that topic, so that you have a better idea about my interests. But to put it short, I constantly feel torn between the things I want to do. I swear, sometimes I diagnose myself with ADD, trying to understand this trait of mine. But here’s the question, How do you schedule your reading time? How can I read more every day? I honestly need some help on the subject. Fifty-two book goal is no joke for me, and I am already five books behind. Help!

 

Short Story: The Gold Bug

Tags

2012, adventure, Edgar Allan Poe, short story

Author: Edgar Allan Poe, 1843
Genre: Short Story, Adventure
Format: Ebook, 43 pages

The Gold Bug was my very first Edgar Allan Poe story. Surprise-surprise, I had to read it for school, and it became a favourite ever since. It’s been a while since I’ve read it last, so this time I went into the story with very general memories about the plot. I knew it was about treasure hunting and cryptography, which is always fun, but I couldn’t recall the rest. This time The Gold Bug seemed shorter and more fast paced than it used to be in times of my childhood. I also noticed the incredible racist stereotypes that eluded my naive mind before. All in all, this time looked to be a completely new experience.

The story focused on the method of finding the treasure – deciphering the cryptic code found by the characters, – rather than building up the background story of how the treasure came to existence. Apparently at the time it was written, cryptography was gaining popularity, and Poe’s creation caused quite a stir in literary world. Even though the cryptogram presented in the text was rather simple and based on simple substitution, general public was very impressed and considered the author a genius. To exploit the situation Poe challenged his readers to send in their own secret messages for the author to solve. The contest proved to be a roaring success, making The Gold Bug the most celebrated of Poe’s works during his lifetime.

To summarize the plot: the main character learns that his friend has found a new kind of bug and is being haunted by the gold fever after being bitten by it. He is acting irrationally and keeps asking the narrator to go with him into the forest with shovels in hand, which makes everyone wonder about the man’s sanity. The narrator finally yields, but remains skeptical until after a lot of digging his shovel suddenly hits the metal hinges of a buried chest full of gold and gems. It turns out that the madman has actually found an old pirate map and learned a way to decode its secrets, and that there is more method to his madness than it seems. This is where his friend explains how the map has come into his possession, how the cipher has been broken, and how the gold bug has played its role in the adventure. Do I have to confess that my favourite part of the story dealt with outlining the contents of the chest in great detail? I guess I just did.

The short story might be a bit simpler than I remember, but it is still a great fun to read. It’s not as sinister as other works by Poe, which might appeal to those who tend to avoid his writing. It might also be a bit too straightforward for those who enjoy to solve the mystery on their own, so I wouldn’t recommend it it to anyone looking for a brain-teaser. But it’s great for those readers who are craving for a nice pirate story with an interesting twist. I know that for me The Gold Bug will always have a special place in my heart.

Library Sale

Tags

classics, list

As every book lover knows, missing a library sale is crazy talk. Today was the first day of Book2Buy event at our central branch, and I knew I had to get there asap, before all the good stuff was gone. All hardcovers were promised to go for $2 and paperbacks for meager $1. All in all my mom and I left an hour later with no less than forty four books. Surprisingly, we got charged a dollar for every book nevermind the format. A great treasure hunt indeed. We went early in the morning, and ended up hitting the sale bins only an hour after opening, but the place was  bursting with people already. I saw somebody snagging The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and that’s when I knew I had to move fast before other goodies escaped my grasp. Fortunately I got to the English literature table full of classics before it got ransacked.

My biggest challenge was to ignore some books that I already had in other formats. I figured that even though I had most of these as ebooks, a paper copy was always a welcome addition to any library. Thanks to that logic I plunged into the classics guilt-free, but decided to be cautious with contemporary reads. Here are the books I picked for myself:

• The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
• The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
• Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

• Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
• The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir
• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
• Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
• The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
• The Complete Shorter Fiction by Wilkie Collins

• Mary, Queen of Scots by Alison Weir
• Alexander’s Tomb by Nicholas J. Saunders

Novel: Murder on the Links [Poirot Mysteries #2]

Tags

2012, Agatha Christie, crime, Hercule Poirot Mystery, mystery

Author: Agatha Christie, 1923
Genre: Mystery, Crime
Format: Ebook, 201 pages

I love it how with Agatha Christie you can never guess who the murderer is. She might suggest one suspect, then the other, and while it might seem the mystery is over, she throws in a crazy twist and introduces another criminal you could never suspect! She is a magnificent crime-writing maestro. In the second book of her Hercule Poirot Mysteries series the famous Belgian detective is summoned by a rich businessman hailing from South America. There seems to be a matter of grave importance, and so intrigued, Poirot and his friend Captain Hastings travel to northern France to meet with the potential client. Their trip, however, comes to an unusual halt, as the two discover that the businessman is discovered dead the very morning of their arrival. A love affair and a woman scorned are suspected to be the reasons for foul play, but Poirot has his own opinion about the events.

This was a fun crime to solve, and those who have read the book might agree with me on the opinion about the unusual way the mystery unravelled itself. Besides enjoying the central plot, I had a good time chuckling at the portrayal of gender roles shifting at the time the story was written. As some of you might know, roaring twenties became famous for birth of jazz age and popularization of an image of a free woman that was not suppressed by no man. These young girls shed corsets, embraced cigarettes and learned to speak their minds. They, of course, were called flappers. In the beginning of the book Hastings runs into such a girl and unbeknownst to himself is immediately smitten by her. At first, he is shocked by the girl’s unconventional behaviour, yet somehow manages to be charmed. He writes:

Now I’m old-fashioned. A woman, I consider, should be womanly. I have no patience with the modern neurotic girl who jazzes from morning till night, smokes like a chimney, and uses language which would make a Billingsgate fishwoman blush. Later on the girl responds in her own manner: Your idea of a woman is someone who gets on a chair and shrieks if she sees a mouse. That’s all prehistoric.

Isn’t it a wonderful exchange of opinion? On the other hand, somewhat of a contrast to the free-minded girl, Christie introduces two other characters of a different generation – the dead businessman’s wife and the suspected lover, – both proper ladies by all accounts. These two are the cause of multiple admirations expressed by every man they encounter: the way they hold themselves, the way they speak, and the way they certainly would not allow anyone to question their honour. Sometimes I was shocked how often the police refrained from interrogating these two women out of fear to insult them. Today they would be charged with obstruction of investigation. Instead Poirot remarks:

But she will not speak. Threats and enmities would not mover her. A remarkable woman that, Hastings.

How totally opposite the women that come out from under Christie’s pen are: a modern girl who speaks whatever comes to mind and two reserved ladies unwilling to share their secrets! Poor Hastings, of course, manages to fall in love yet again, and almost becomes an obstruction to Poirot’s clever plot to capture the murderer. But nothing can stand on the way of our beloved detective, and he manages to solve the riddle in his ever-elegant fashion to the ultimate amazement of his French rival – Monsieur Giraud.

Reading Stats [May]

Tags

list, monthly stats

April was a month for new beginnings. Firstly, I finally finished my exams, and if all is good, I’ll be graduating in May. It still feels weird to know that the business degree I’ve been working for four years is finally mine. So now I’m in the process of looking for a new job. Secondly, I finally began moving in with my boyfriend of four years, and that’s a bit nerve-wrecking. As for reading books, the last week of April gave me an opportunity to relax and enjoy a few stories. As you will see, I have not finished much, but I have successfully began several hefty novels. I am happy with the progress I’ve made so far and the quality of books I’ve picked to read. The Fellowship of the Ring is surprisingly easy to read, considering all my fears about Tolkien and his writing. I am loving A Clash of Kings even though this season took a few liberties concerning the plot. Master and Margarita is my first Russian novel in a long time, and I have to say it’s surprisingly refreshing. I had to postpone my Virginia Woolf experience for later, as I find that I am just not in the mood for it. I should be returning to it a bit later.

As for my plans for April, I didn’t do all that bad. For my first goal, I wanted to follow The Game of Thrones series by reading the book at the same time. Even though I am a bit behind on my reading, I am proud to see a quarter of the chunkster under my belt already. For my second goal, I wanted to finish the next book of Hercule Poirot and start the second novel in Sherlock Holmes series. I succeeded with both, and even finished The Sign of Four ahead of schedule. My third goal asked for an obscure Gothic novel. I didn’t find time for this one, but I did manage to re-visit Edgar Allen Poe by reading his short story. It feels good to sit down with a master of macabre on a rainy evening. The fourth goal was achieved with flying colours, because I did manage to catch up with my posts from February and March. Finally, I am on track with my writing! For the concluding goal, I unfortunately didn’t have time to study philosophy at all. But as we all know, there is always May to do that. All in all, it turned out to be a pretty good month. Can’t wait to see what May brings!

Books finished [April] 2/4 + 2 Short Stories:

• Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie
• The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Vampyre, A Tale by John Polidori

Books in progress:

• The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien [30%]
• A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin [25%]
• Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov [22%]
• The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf [On Hold]

Readalongs:

• Clarissa by Samuel Richardson – Poor Clarissa, I’ve been so mean to you. Never fear, I foresee great changes come next month.

Additions to the library: 

• Queen Sheba’s Ring by H. Rider Haggard
• Game of Thrones and Philosophy by Henry Jacoby
• Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions by Christian Lander
• Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy [Russian Edition]

Plans for May [or near future]:

1. Press on with A Clash of Kings. The show is halfway done, and I am still mingling in the beginning. The further I read, the more I want to know what’s going to happen. I’m hoping my favourite characters are going to survive the second book. That means you: Jon, Daenerys, and Tyrion!
2. Finish The Fellowship of the Ring and as many other books started in April as I can. I have a bad habit of picking up new books without finishing other ones. Sometimes my mood strikes me to read something specific, and I end up losing interest in whatever was in front of me in the first place.
3. Finish The Three Musketeers to cross it off my “Abandoned” list. This year I wanted to clean up my “never-finished” list of doom just because I hate leaving things undone. Like I mentioned in my New Year’s post, I still have the Dumas major novel, Nana, and The Moonstone to tread through.
4. Still try to read an obscure Gothic novel.
5. Post thoughts on all books read in April and catch up with May’s readings. This blog needs more love!
6. Study philosophy with House and Philosophy or begin Histories by Herodotus. Being done with school doesn’t mean you can’t continue your education.
7. Practice some French or Japanese to get my rusty language skills to work.

Novel: Frankenstein

Tags

gothic, science fiction, horror, 2012, 1001 Books, Mary Shelley

Author: Mary Shelley, 1818
Genre: Horror, Gothic, Science Fiction
Format: Ebook, 200 pages

Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.

Reading Frankenstein reminded me of another book dealing with a man playing at God’s game – The Island of Doctor Moreau, which was discussed earlier this year. The two men are obsessed with learning the mysticism of life through grotesque experiments. But while Moreau is never touched by guilt or remorse,Victor Frankenstein spends the rest of his life trying to pay for the damage he’s done. I liked that about him, but it took me a while to understand his ways. At first Victor is telling us that from his very young years he was interested in the “secrets of heaven and earth”. He explains that “whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in it highest sense, the physical secrets of the world” (p.25). Very much like Moreau, he wanted to be able to understand how things worked, which is nothing new for an aspiring scientist. Victor, however, undertakes a dark task of creating a human from parts of multiple corpses reanimated with electricity.

We all know the story of course. There is a thunder storm, and a hideous underling croaking “Yes, master”, and a menacing “It’s alive!” as the monster moves for the first time, his hideous features illuminated by sudden flashes of lightning! Well, not exactly. I was expecting all these theatrics as I opened the book, but was greatly underwhelmed by the process of creation of the monster. In the book Victor does it alone, in the privacy of his apartment turned into a lab. The whole thing takes maybe a page in description, and while we have a lifeless form on the operating table at one point, it is a walking zombie by the next paragraph. And no, Victor does not proclaim it to be alive in hysterical triumph. Instead, he is terrified by his own creation and retreats to the safety of his room, pretty much fainting in the process.

Yes, Victor does a lot of fainting in the book. Apparently, back in the nineteenth century, it was considered a sign of extreme manliness to be able to express violent emotions and be physically devastated by inner turmoil. I guess back in the day women didn’t complain about men being too insensitive. And Victor has a lot to be sensitive about: the monster is resentful of his master’s hatred for it and vows to exercise vengeance whenever opportunity allows for it. The monster feels rejected by the world, and while originally having a pure heart, learns cruelty and violence as one after another of his attempts to be part of society fails. When it crosses paths with those dear to Victor, it sees the opportunity to rob his creator of happiness too. This is pretty sad, if you ask me.  Sometimes I wondered why Frankenstein couldn’t take responsibility for the monster, instead choosing to destroy it. To remember a famous Saint-Exupery quote from Little Prince: “”You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed”, and Victor failed on that accord. I think he should have followed through with his promise to create a female for the monster and let them live in seclusion. At the same time, who is to say that Victor’s logical explanation to his change of heart wasn’t based on real possibilities? And finally, to conclude on the epic note of awesome:

This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia. They fly quickly over the snow in their sledges; the motion is pleasant, and , in my opinion, far more agreeable than that of an English stagecoach. The cold is not excessive, if you are wrapped in furs – a dress which I have already adopted, for there is a great difference between walking the deck and remaining seated motionless for hours, when no exercise prevents the blood from actually freezing in your veins. [...] I shall certainly find no friend on the wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seamen. 

Ok, how cool is that? Mary Shelley herself is mentioning my hometown in one of the most famous horror books ever published!

Novel: The Land That Time Forgot [Caspak #1]

Tags

2012, adventure, classics, Edgar Rice Burroughs, lost world

Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1918
Genre: Adventure, Lost World
Format: Ebook, 73 pages

Were one to bump into a Bengal tiger in the ravine behind the Bimini Baths, one could not be more surprised than was I to see a perfectly good quart thermos bottle turning and twisting in the surf of Cape Farewell at the southern extremity of Greenland. I rescued it, but was soaked above the knees doing it; and then I sat down in the sand and opened it, and in the long twilight read the manuscript, neatly written and tightly folded, which was its contents.  You have read the opening paragraph, and if you are an imaginative idiot like myself, you will want to read the rest of it; so I shall give it to you here, omitting quotation marks – which are difficult of remembrance.

Hohoho, am I being challenged Mr. Burroughs? I guess I should have listened to the guy, because I ended up reading the whole book in one sitting. It all starts with an unnamed man finding a message in a bottle describing misadventures on a journey across the Atlantic. Immediately the story switches to the author of the manuscript and we forget the existence of the man who is supposedly reading it to us. The story begins in WWI when an American Bowen J. Tyler happens to be on a ship that is attacked by a German U-boat. The ship sinks and Tyler miraculously survives along with his loyal dog and Lys, the young woman he rescues from the sea. The three of them are picked up by a British boat, but luck is not on their side and they are soon again attacked by the same enemy. This time the British manage to capture the U-boat and its crew, but their craft is sunk, so they decide to sail home on the U-33.

Not surprisingly, all the ships they encounter on the way take them for Germans and flee before they can ask for provision and fuel. Finally, they decide to cross the ocean and take course for America. At the same time strange things happen on board of the U-boat, as someone constantly sabotages the navigating equipment. By the time the traitor is discovered and a small mutiny is suppressed, our heroes find themselves in the unfamiliar Antarctic waters. Threatened by thirst and hunger, the crew is forced to dock to a mysterious island that is not charted on any maps. Isolated and remote, it turned out to offer sanctuary to strange prehistoric lizards, lavish flora, and ape-like creatures. The crew must now survive carnivorous animals, aggressive aboriginals, and  unknown dangers of the jungle, all while trying to get together enough provision and fuel to get back to civilization.

Burroughs has a very crazy idea about science according to modern common knowledge. But at the time the book was written he had all the artistic license he wanted to invent the most fantastic facts. To give you a better perspective, consider the scene where the crew is attacked by an Allosaurus while trying to hunt. Tyler and his men aim straight for the beast’s heart, shoot, but the dinosaur manages to chase them for a good distance before suddenly collapsing and dying. Burroughs’ explanation? The Allosaurus’s neurological system is so primitive, that even after being fatally shot, his body continues to function for many minutes until his tiny brain finally catches up with the idea that it’s time to die. I burst laughing out loud when I read it! Another example being the Plesiosaurus attacking the U-boat and sticking its head inside, and continuing to bite and trying to catch a prey until the crew hacks its head off. Um, you’d think after the first hit to the head with an axe, the animal would get a clew and retreat! But I find a lot of the older books and movies dealing with prehistoric animals are guilty of portraying the creatures as almost indestructible. A hero can unload a full clip into the attacking beast, yet it will continue to run after him like no tomorrow. My blog have seen such seemingly bullet-proof animals when I was talking about the The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. I guess it’s a trend with turn of the century literature.

Another trend is the love story. Is it me or all late 19th, early 20th century literature portrays falling in love like a math formula? The characters meet for the first time under some mysterious circumstances. He admires her lady-like manners, mentions that she might not be of most beauty, but is charmed by her kind and gentle features. She is seemingly cold to him (bonus points if she was promised to another but the engagement fell through). Through the course of the entire book they maintain a mutual respect and safe distance. Then something terrible happens, and the hero must save the girl from imminent danger. Once the adventure is over, their feelings burst out on the surface, and it turns out they are both madly in love with each other, even though he probably doesn’t even know her favorite color, and she is clueless about his past. Ah, the mysteries of love! The highlight of the book for me was when Tyler had to fight a savage apeman with his bare hands to be able to claim Lys as his own! Could you get any more sexist than that, Mr. Burroughs?

The last thing I wanted to mention is the improbable evolution theory suggested by the author. Basically, according to Burroughs, the island is divided among different tribes of apemen at different stages of development. The crew first encounters creatures that are no more than monkeys wielding stones and sticks. Eventually, Tyler gets to know a more advanced tribe with its members having stone hatchets and primitive language. Surprisingly enough, upon capturing one of them, Lys manages to learn the language after few weeks and teach it to Tyler. I mean, come on, it’s not like you have the same view of the world to be able to figure out direct translations… But everything is possible in a science fiction novel! Later on the characters wonder into the village inhibited by apemen of even higher development stage with spears as their weapons. There they learn that throughout their life the creatures evolve from mere monkeys into humanoids and must migrate into the tribe that corresponds with their level of intelligence. Ultimately, all creatures manage to evolve to the point of being able to live in the legendary tribe far away whose inhabitants apparently resemble Tyler and Lys. Though the heroes never reach the elusive village, I hope Burroughs talks about it a little more in the following book. Essentially, the author suggests here that evolution is possible on personal level and happens in one’s lifespan, which of course reads as complete nonsense to the modern reader, but must have been a thrill to the contemporaries of Burroughs. So this is how I decided to read the book: with an open mind and a humorous outlook. Turned out I very much enjoyed The Land That Time Forgot, and hope to read the next installment soon enough.

Novel: Catching Fire [The Hunger Games #2]

Tags

2012, Dystopia, science fiction, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, young adult

Author: Suzanne Collins, 2009
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia, Science Fiction
Format: Ebook, 264 pages

What do I mean when I say I love Gale? I don’t know. I did kiss him last night, in a moment when my emotions were running so high. But I’m sure he doesn’t remember it. Does he? I hope not. If he does, everything  will just get more complicated and I really can’t think about kissing when I’ve got a rebellion to incite. 

God, this must be the single stupidest paragraph in the entire book. It is the epitome of useless teenage drama, bad writing, and over-inflated ego that I hate so much in a character. But let us step back and start from the beginning. When I read the first book in the Hunger Games trilogy last year, I was a little annoyed with some teen silliness that began to unfold by the end of the novel, but generally I really liked the book itself. I loved the fast pace, the elaborate world, the unpredictability of the Games… I wanted to stop at the first book, because I’ve heard some reviewers complaining about the downhill nature of the series. However, the movie release was just around the corner and a friend of mine got me all pumped up about it. She insisted I read the next books as soon as possible, so after holding out a couple of days, I finally gave in to her and opened Catching Fire. It was a quick read, but it was not painless.

Katniss drove me nuts the whole time, and when the protagonist is acting on your nerves it gets hard to cheer for them. In the first book Katniss was strong and independent. She took action and found ways to survive no matter how desperate the situation got. She was a quick-thinker and a reliable leader to Rue and Peeta. Catching Fire, however, showed me a girl that is weak and indecisive. She constantly needed others to save her, and good, likable characters actually died thanks to her. I could not swallow the whole “Katniss is the next messiah, so we must protect her at all cost” thing. She was so relied on as the image of rebellion against the Capitol that others forgot their own survival instincts and stepped into the poisonous gas and let crazy monkeys maul their faces to keep Katniss alive. Not very believable. The most infuriating thing, is that Katniss didn’t really acknowledge their sacrifices, wondering most of the time about their strange behavior. I guess she was mostly concerned who she should kiss next – Peeta or Gale.

Because I’m selfish. I’m a coward. I’m the kind of girl who, when she might actually be of use, would run to stay alive and leave those who couldn’t follow to suffer and die.

Yep, that’s Katniss. That’s pretty damn far from the girl who almost swallowed poisonous berries to save her fellow survivor and to defy the oppressive government! And don’t get me started on the whole love triangle theme. I understand that this book is oriented towards raging hormones of young teens, but does it always have to be an emotional tag-of-war? Both Peeta and Gale seem to have zero self-respect for themselves, and while Katniss jumps back and forth between them, her insensitivity does not shake their undying love for her. In real life they guy would just get pissed off and pretend that the chick did not exist anymore (he’ll probably suffer inside, but will do it in silence, unlike some people *cough*Peeta*cough*). You know what they should have done? Have a showdown like in the beginning of the Saw VII movie with the two guys and the girl that played them suspended above the saw. The outcome would have probably been the same.

One thing I sort of enjoyed was the arena, which is not surprising considering the description of Games was the highlight of the first book for me. I liked the fact that it was built differently this time, and that it had a special theme. It was a bit too easy to figure out for the characters, and that helped them live longer, but of course the Capitol had a few Aces up their sleeves to keep things interesting. The ending was a bit abrupt and happened kind of unexpectedly, but left us with an interesting cliffhanger. I don’t know when I will get to the final book. I feel rather obligated to finish now that the end is so near, but have a feeling that I will never get the same satisfaction as I got from the titular book. Maybe I should have just stopped at Hunger Games.

Novel: The Book of Chameleons

Tags

2012, Jose Eduardo Agualusa, magical realism, mystery

Author: Jose Eduardo Agualusa, 2006
Genre: Mystery, Magical Realism
Format: Paperback, 192 pages

The priest talked of angels, and I saw chickens. To this day, in fact, of all the things I’ve seen, chicken are still the ones that most closely resembles angels. He talked of heavenly joy, and I saw chickens scrabbling away in the sun, digging up little nests in the sand, turning their little glass eyes in pure mystical bliss. I can’t imagine Paradise without chickens. I can’t even imagine the Great God, reclining lazily on a fluffy bed of clouds, without his being surrounded by a gentle host of chickens. You know something — I’ve never known a bad chicken — have you? Chickens, like white ants, like butterflies, are altogether immune against evil.

If this paragraph didn’t make you drop whatever you were doing and pick up The Book of Chameleons, I don’t know what will. It took me a long while to get my hands on this book. I’ve heard about it for the first time several years ago, not long after it was released in English. I thought the blurb on the jacket and some reviews I’ve read online sounded promising, but I did not want to pay $16 for a book I wasn’t sure about. On one hand, the story told from the point of view of a chameleon living in the house of a man who sells memories of past can be described in one word – ingenious. On the other hand, magical realism can be quite tricky to pull off without confusing the reader. I wanted to make sure I could enjoy the book before I committed to a purchase (my usual mantra when it comes to book-buying). The search in the local library resulted in nothing, and even the ebook was costing on par with the physical copy (what’s up with that?!). So my journey in Agualusa’s fantastic world had to wait a bit. Finally, this year I renewed my library card and decided to try out previously unknown to me inter-library loan. Turned out a city three hours away had a few copies – which I find unfair by the way, – so I ordered one to be brought over. The thing with library loans is that you can’t extend the lending period, and every extra day costs like a $1 in penalties. I had to make sure I actually read the book once it was checked out.

Yes, I confess, I was confused at time as who the narrator was and whose dreams I was reading about. There was the chameleon’s dreams, and dreams of his past life as Jorge Luis Borges – the writer; sometimes the past trader Felix would appear in them and I’d be like, whoa why is he hanging out with Borges? At one point I thought the mysterious client of Felix who introduces himself as a war photographer might had been in one of them. So yes, I was lost. Then the actual storyline began trickling through, as it turned out the war photographer and Felix’s girlfriend had a strange past connection, which turned into a murder mystery and a violent confrontation in the end. I was taken by surprise. One moment Agualusa was talking about chickens and heaven, and the next he was screaming of secret agents and killing people off. The murder mystery unfolded before the reader extremely fast, being explained in only a few pages. But once you read them, you start to understand all the small connections and allusions the author makes to it throughout the book. The ending is so unexpected, that if you’d stop reading halfway trough, you’d never guess there is any connection between the characters or any mystery behind them, and you’d be left wondering about the book’s purpose.

I’m not sure there is any more to say about the novel. You have to experience it on your own to see what it is all about. I loved Agualusa’s language and bright imagery he used to explain things. I liked the tranquil pauses and quiet moments dedicated solely to description. I am amazed how I could almost taste the colors and smell the sounds in the story – and that, my friends, is the true magical realism. Check it out if you like strange books that leave room to your personal interpretation.

Russian Literature and Me

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classics, list, Russian Literature

Considering I come from a family that is Russian and that I could speak and read the language since I was a child, I never really paid much attention to Russian literature. I did read some Pushkin and Lermontov before – long ago, – but I cannot recall any of it. I also remember the time when I attempted Gogol’s Taras Bulba, but the enterprise was abandoned after several chapters. Perhaps the younger me was not ready for the mammoths of literature. After all, even adults get headaches from Russian classics. I know my mother absolutely despises the depressing and word-heavy “masterpieces”, so I was never really exposed to the potential that these books hold.

Reading for class, as everyone must relate to this, is tiresome and boring; immediately I found a million other things I could do instead of pondering over old dusty books. When I was attending Russian school, our literature teacher assigned an impossibly extensive list of works we had to read during summer. The list contained anywhere between fifteen to twenty book, so try to picture a kid who would undertake that assignment rather than play outside with friends. We were also told to keep a reading journal with summaries of the books for quick references during the school year. I had a reading journal that I kept for three years of such assignments, and what I wouldn’t give to be able to flip through it again. Unfortunately, it is lost in time. I remember very few of the titles I was obligated to read, and that’s a shame, because I would love to follow the list now that I am an adult. Now, I am actually eager to read these books. Alas, I have to reconstruct the list from little bits and pieces that I remember. Isn’t it weird how broken and distorted a childhood memory can be?

I do feel blessed in a way that I can discover great writers like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky in their original glory. That is why I almost feel like it’s my duty to read as much of Russian literature as I can, while I still possess my mother tongue (yes, I do feel like I am starting to forget it as years go by). So where do I start? I asked my mother which authors she was asked to read in school as a requirement, and I also searched some Russian educational websites for information. I stumbled on a forum post that allowed members to talk about the books they were forced to read back in the day. The postings were hilarious, but contained a lot of famous works by Gorky (my arch-nemesis from school years) Gogol and Tolstoy. Should I tackle the authors I’ve always been scared of first? Should I dig in into the lengthy 19th century fiction? My mother told me to drop the idea as I would apparently just get depressed and quit anyway. To counter that, I know that unlike my mom I love tragic stories that evoke deep emotions, so perhaps I’d be a happy camper after all. Since I cannot refer to the lost reading journal, I made my own list based on my research of school requirements in Russia. I will refer to it once in a while to see if I am on my way to become a little closer to my literary heritage.

Early History
The Tale of Igor’s Campaign
A Journey Beyond the Three Seas
Bylinas

18th Century
Poor Liza by Nikolai Karamzin

19th Century
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
The Little Tragedies by Alexander Pushkin
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol
Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
The Provincial Sketches by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Childhood, Boyhood, Youth by Leo Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Short Stories by Anton Chekhov

20th Century
Childhood by Maxim Gorky
Makar Chudra by Maxim Gorky
Mother by Maxim Gorky
Aelita by Aleksey Tolstoy
The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin by Aleksey Tolstoy
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Quiet Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn