I'm actually not reading anything at the minute, I need to find a decent book, I have Stephen Fry's "The Liar", but I'm finding it a little hard to get into... However, I've got admit, that I'm literally counting down the day (to September 13th) and the release of "The Fry Chronicles" part 2 of his autobiography... I love the man, and can't wait to read more about his life.
Well, I took a break from Les Mis because I had some actual summer reading for me to do. I read one book and two short stories for U.S. History next year.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's about Hester Prynne, an adulterous woman, who is forced to wear the scarlet letter (A) on her chest while she lives in a Puritan New England colony. The book was long (maybe because I started it in June and just finished it after a month break) and it took a while for the speed to pick up. The ending was rather random, but I can see how it's an American classic. I hope I don't have to write a paper on it, but I have a feeling I will.
The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Francis Bret Harte. It is about outcasts trying to escape, but they are caught in a snowstorm. This was probably my favorite of the three things we read. I liked the mystery involved, but I was sad at the end. Actually, I'm pretty sure that I still don't understand the end. But I liked it XD Plus, I have a soft spot between the hint of something between Mr. Oakhurst and Duchess. I guess it's another American classic short story.
The Open Boat by Stephen Crane. The story is about sailors caught out to sea and their attempt to get to land. It was good, but I didn't really understand what was going on. I expect that SparkNotes will solve that problem
I just finished The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I've seen the film, so I knew where the book was going, but I still wanted to read the book.
It's about a nine year old boy, Bruno, who lives in Berlin with his father (a Commandant, a fact of which young Bruno is very proud), mother, and older sister Gretel (who he thinks is 'a Hopeless Case'!). One day Bruno and his family move away from their lovely house in Berlin to a strange place in the middle of nowhere, a place called Out-With, where Bruno's father has been sent by a man called the Fury. Bruno notices that not far from his new home is a mysterious 'town', full of odd looking men who are all wearing striped pyjamas. When Bruno asks his dad about it, his dad informs him that they're 'not really people' and he later finds out from Gretel that they are Jews, and that 'we don't like them'. Exploring one day, Bruno meets a boy sitting on the other side of the fence, a boy called Shmuel. They become friends, and talk about their lives. It turns out they were born on the same day. Bruno complains about his annoying sister, his father's associate, Lt. Kotler, who Bruno despises, and having to move away from his old life in Berlin. Shmuel tells Bruno of how he used to live in Poland above his dad's watch shop, but one day some soldiers came and took them all away, first to a 'bad part of town' where Shmuel and his family had to share a room with lots of other people, and then they were put on trains and brought to the 'town', which is actually a camp. The Fury, of course, is Hitler (the Fuhrer) and Out-With is Auschwitz - Bruno in his innocence has misheard the titles. Of course, Bruno's innocence also prevents him from seeing the horror of the concentration camp, and the atrocities that go on there. But he becomes increasingly aware that something is wrong. Because this is in some ways a 'childrens' novel (but it's really not in so many ways) the reader never fully sees some of the horrors that occur - for example, when a Jewish waiter that works for Bruno's family spills wine over Lt Kotler, Kotler 'does something terrible to him' - presumably beats him, though we never see it. Similarly, it turns out the waiter was once a doctor, but how he came to be a servant is explained to Bruno but not to the reader - it's implicit that he was presumably stripped of his licence and forced to become a servant. Finally, of course, there's what happens at the end of the story
Bruno sneaks into the camp, disguised as an inmate to help Shmuel look for his missing father and ends up being gassed along with Shmuel and about a hundred others.
which is never explicitly described (thank God) but is pretty obvious.
I really enjoyed the book because it shows how children are often incapable of the kinds of prejudice adults have towards one another, and how they are often incapable of fully perceivng the horrors of the adult world in some ways, but how they are aware of them to some extent, too.
As grim as the topic is, it's actually at times a very sweet book about a friendship between two young, lonely boys, and about growing up and learning things about the world, yourself, and your family and friends, most importantly, who your real friends are, and what really matters in life. There are also some funny bits, surprisingly, Bruno calling Hitler 'the Fury' and wondering if the Fury missed a bit when he was shaving, or when Bruno and Shmuel wonder whether the camp is 'Poland or Denmark'.
america thought it was too lenient towards the "occupiers" and made them too human (newsflash: the nazis were human, that's what made them so frightening!)
That's something that comes across in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, too. Bruno's father is a high ranking Nazi, but he kisses his kids goodnight, gave the family's maid a job and paid for her mother's medical care and funeral because he knew and grew up with her family, and (from having watched the film as well) he seems to genuinely believe that what he's doing at Auschwitz is the right thing. Also
at the end, when he finally realizes what happened to his son, he's absolutely devastated - which Boyne conveys in only a few lines - as he realizes what he's done, what he's allowed to happen, and you really can't help but feel sorry for him.
A lot of the highest ranking Nazis were intelligent people, with families and flaws. Reading this novel does help you see how the German people, good people, intelligent people some of them high ranking people could let something like the Holocaust happen. Not that weren't some real bastards (Hitler and Kotler being prime examples) but a lot of them were just kind of swept up in the propganda. But at the same time, you think, wait, these were intelligent people capable of kindness and love and generosity, just how the hell could they let it all happen?
Reading it also reminded me of how shockingly recent the Holocaust really was. I mean, it was quite a while ago, but it was still the twentieth century. And it happened in 'modern' 'enlightened' Europe, in Germany, which was in many ways very progressive. We're not talking the back of beyond, here, either in terms of time or location. It's really quite frightening how a nation, and a people could be swept up in something like that. (Incidentally, there are a couple of Germans in the book - Bruno's mother and grandmother, who believe what is being done to the Jews is wrong, but most of the characters seem to treat it as just something normal!) Bruno thinks it's all very odd, but he doesn't really see the true extent of the evil that is the Holocaust, which makes it all the more horrific for the adult reader.
hillary jordan's mudbound - another one about the south in the 50s (well, late 40s really), but from a different point of view, i didn't know what to expect from it but i really liked it. it started pretty dark and got darker as it went on. definitely not one for anyone that likes happy endings! in fact the ending was pretty horrific (in a good way, if that makes sense) but it was very well written and quite gripping.
I've read that. Can't remember much about it, but I enjoyed it.
I've also read 'The Shepherd' by Frederick Forsyth. It's a story about a young pilot flying home on leave on Christmas Eve 1957, from Germany to Lakenheath, England. Suddenly, a fog descends, and his instruments go haywire, he loses radio contact and is desperately low on fuel. Then a mysterious World War II bomber appears below him, trying to make contact, and 'shepherds' him to a deserted airfield, just before his fuel runs out. Once safely on the ground, the pilot tries to find out more about the mysterious aircraft and it's pilot - just what was a WW2 bomber doing flying about in the fog on Christmas Eve? He finds out it was not sent from either the airfield where he landed, or a nearby one which used to have WW2 bombers fly weather missions.....
Yeah, so it's a ghost story (lots of ghosts out and about on Christmas Eve) and it turns out the pilot of the plane used to fly 'shepharding' missions back in the day, going out on foggy nights looking for shot up bombers and planes to guide to safety, a job which the pilot swore he would never give up....until he died, on Christmas Eve, 1943!
Really good, a short read, very gripping but really quite beautiful.
That's something that comes across in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, too. Bruno's father is a high ranking Nazi, but he kisses his kids goodnight, gave the family's maid a job and paid for her mother's medical care and funeral because he knew and grew up with her family
i think there's a tendency to make out that the nazis were some kind of awful monsters from planet evil or something, which i think is kind of dangerous - people need to realise that they were ordinary people, human beings, and it just goes to show what human beings are capable of. i loved that film downfall, precisely because it re-humanised hitler - he was just a bloke, ultimately. and his rise to power was almost accidental in some ways, it was very circumstantial - i think the problem with monsterising the nazis (is that a word? i doubt it!) is that it makes us complacent and lulls us into believing it could never happen again: well, newsflash, it could, it can and it will (and in fact you could argue that it has - stalin, mao, kim jong il, darfur, kosovo, etc etc, and that's just the famous ones), because that's what humans do. i think the humanness of the nazis is the scariest element because it's a great lesson in just how twisted people can get and how fast. we should all take heed of that instead of fooling ourselves it'll never happen again.
^Downfall is great. Along the same lines, having watched 'W' made me realize that George Bush is just a guy. For all that people make him out as 'evil' (which I don't think he is) and dumb (well, he wasn't the brightest of sparks,was he) he was just a bloke, as screwed up as anyone else and with various family issues. I'm not comparing Bush and Hitler in the sense that I think Bush was some sort of evil dictator, but they're both ultimately just blokes - not particularly nice blokes (in Hitler's case) or smart blokes (in Bush's) but just blokes who should never have been put in control of a country.
I'm reading "The Kiterunner" by Khaled Hosseini. I can't believe it took me so long before I started reading this one. It's a story about two young boys who grow up in Afghanistan. One of them moves to America with his father and he can't stop thinking of his friend. Than when they meet again, nothing is the same. I'm about one third in the book and I love it so far. Can't wait to finish it.
^Downfall is great. Along the same lines, having watched 'W' made me realize that George Bush is just a guy. For all that people make him out as 'evil' (which I don't think he is) and dumb (well, he wasn't the brightest of sparks,was he) he was just a bloke, as screwed up as anyone else and with various family issues. I'm not comparing Bush and Hitler in the sense that I think Bush was some sort of evil dictator, but they're both ultimately just blokes - not particularly nice blokes (in Hitler's case) or smart blokes (in Bush's) but just blokes who should never have been put in control of a country.
W was a great film - and the same point really, all these "evil monsters" are just human beings. the really sad/scary thing about the world is that it's not evil or satan or whatever that creates misery around the world, it's the fact that human beings are nasty pieces of work, on the whole, or at least have the capacity to be and it doesn't take much pushing. [/ot]
i'm still reading cup of gold (slowly because i keep being busy), it's very good so far
I've just finished the last in the series of the Stieg Larsson Books "The Girl Who Kicks a Hornets Nest" and i have to say it brings a nice close to the series, I did here there were meant to be more in the pipeline before he died but I think its nice where its been left as everything is rounded up.
Tho I recommend that anyone who wants to read them read all three otherwise the 3rd book you will find a lot more challenging specially if you haven't read the 2nd. I will admit tho to what most people said its hard to get into specially the 1st it took me least 100 pages maybe to get into it then you kind of get to the point of wanting to find out how it resolves.
Also finished Charlaine Harris's "Dead In the Family" the latest in the true blood series and I wasn't as gripped as I was previously however it sured up stuff in my head and answered a lot of questions if you've been reading them all. Tho the fact it doesn't sync in with the show is nice i can read it associate characters now but in my head give them the role in the book to that story.
'Wild Blue: 741 Squadron - On a Wing and a Prayer Over Occupied Europe' by Stephen E. Ambrose. It's about the men of the American Air Force in World War II, focusing on the 741 Bomb Squadron and in particular the crew of the Dakota Queen. It's interesting so far. I like how Ambrose writes, he seems very enthusiastic about World War II and he focuses on the men who fought it, rather than what was going on behind the lines/in the headquarters with the various generals. I know very little about the American Air Force, or it's role in WW2, which makes the book interesting.
Lisa, I have Edmund Blunden's 'Undertones of War' on my shelf and am probably going to read it when I've finished the one I'm reading now.
oh fabulous, it's a great book. one of the best ww1 books i reckon, along with sassoon's memoirs of an infantry officer, and, obviously, all quiet on the western front which is just phenomenal.
^I've read a few chapters, but I just can't *connect* with this one, unfortunately, I think it's the style it's written in, which I personally find off-putting. I guess it's a matter of personal taste.
I've ordered 'All Quiet....' from the library , and also 'Birdsong' which I initially had on audiobook from the library and was really enjoying but the second cd was b*ggered up (unfortunately library audiobooks often have a duff cd or two, they get mistreated by idiot customers) so I had to order the book. I think it's somewhere in the massive pile of requested books in the staff office at work!
I have '1984' on my ipod, I'm saving it for the flight to San Francisco in September.
I finished 'Wild Blue' it was great.
On audiobook I'm listening to Robert Harris' Fatherland. It's set in 1964, in a world where the Germans won WWII and Germany rules over Europe. It's the story of a detective, Xavier March, who investigates the death of an old man. That's about as far as I've got in it, but it's good & interesting so far, especially the 'alternate history' idea.
^I've read a few chapters, but I just can't *connect* with this one, unfortunately, I think it's the style it's written in, which I personally find off-putting.
yeah, i can understand that, it does have a slightly odd tone to it, but then a lot of books at the time did - blunden wrote a lot in the pastoral style, which was quite common for ww1 writers. sassoon's "memoirs of an infantry officer" also has that tone to it, it's very pastoral and quite slow, even the war bits, which was kind of the point really, they wrote that way to show the contrast between the beauty of the pastoral life that most of them had been living, and indeed the french countryside, and the carnage of the war, it was a kind of irony; but it can seem rather old fashioned and slow - very unlike, for instance, wilfred owen's poems which smack you round the face.
I've ordered 'All Quiet....' from the library , and also 'Birdsong' which I initially had on audiobook from the library and was really enjoying but the second cd was b*ggered up
gah! i liked birdsong, a lot - although i didn't like the romance subplot. this might be because romance subplots annoy me inherently, but it just seemed superfluous. the war bits (which is most of it) though, are very very good indeed. seb faulks *really* knows how to do his research, he's incredibly thorough. he wrote another one on 19th century psychiatry - i did a course on 19th cent medicine for my degree, and wrote essays on psychiatry for it, and read his book after that - it could've passed for a text book in terms of detail.
"all quiet..." is one of my favourite books of all time, it's just fantastic. it doesn't have the pastoral tone that blunden and sassoon have, it's more direct and more upfront in terms of imagery. plus it's always interesting to read what is essentially the exact same story of war from the "other" side. i mean, the basic content of all those books is almost identical, which for me is fascinating as it goes to show how close the war experience was for soldiers on either side.
I have '1984' on my ipod, I'm saving it for the flight to San Francisco in September.
good plan! it's a great book. orwell is an amazing writer.
i think i've read fatherland, but not for a long long time...
i've just finished steinbeck's 'cup of gold' - it took me a while because i've been busy! but it was pretty good. it was his first novel, and was approximately based on the life of a very famous 17th century pirate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgan from wales who plundered most of the caribbean and panama which at the time was seen as impenetrable. it was quite good, lots of buckles being swashed and so on. it was interesting to see steinbeck's later style being quite evident through a lot of it, and he was clearly fascinated by the life of his subject, even though obviously a lot of the book was fictionalised. he took the big main events and padded the inbetween times
edit: and i've just started a book on forensics and the "real" csi work. it's by a woman who was a real csi for many years, and also taught forensics. it's called "never suck a dead man's hand" - relating to an incident where she accidentally wound up with a corpse's hand in her mouth (i've not got that far yet but she has alluded to it). the title's caused a lot of entertainment because i have the book on my kindle rather than in real life, and the kindle contents screen isn't quite wide enough to fit the whole title - it cuts off just before "hand", so when people look at my kindle contents they always think i'm reading something of a different nature altogether.
anyway, i've only read the intro and first chapter but so far it's pretty good - she has a very entertaining style with a lot of humour (which i think in a book like that might be necessary). one of my favourite parts so far was when she was discussing how unrealistic the csi tv shows are - she wrote "i don't recall grissom responding to any burglary calls where the only evidence of the crime was a stranger's turd found floating in the toilet, and when was the last time catherine willows came home after handling a decomp and found a dead maggot in her bra?" - all a bit gruesome but quite funny too, i like when books about a serious subject (and it has got serious parts too, you can tell she was very dedicated to the job) manages to inject some humour.
gah! i liked birdsong, a lot - although i didn't like the romance subplot. this might be because romance subplots annoy me inherently, but it just seemed superfluous. the war bits (which is most of it) though, are very very good indeed. seb faulks *really* knows how to do his research, he's incredibly thorough. he wrote another one on 19th century psychiatry - i did a course on 19th cent medicine for my degree, and wrote essays on psychiatry for it, and read his book after that - it could've passed for a text book in terms of detail.
"all quiet..." is one of my favourite books of all time, it's just fantastic. it doesn't have the pastoral tone that blunden and sassoon have, it's more direct and more upfront in terms of imagery. plus it's always interesting to read what is essentially the exact same story of war from the "other" side. i mean, the basic content of all those books is almost identical, which for me is fascinating as it goes to show how close the war experience was for soldiers on either side.
I'm reading Birdsong now, and really enjoying it. I didn't mind the romance subplot but it seemed a bit silly and out of nowhere to me, I mean Stephen moves into this French guy's house and straight away he just has to have the guy's wife? I do believe in instant chemistry etc but it still seemed a bit odd, perhaps because I never 'felt' the chemistry between them. Then it got to the 1916 bit. I think the whole description of life in the trenches and the utter futility of it all is amazing, Faulks really seems to 'get' it. The descriptions of the tunnellers' work is particularly well written, I think, and disturbing.
I'm looking forward to reading 'All Quiet' because it gives the same story from the 'other' side. As for what you say about experiences of the war being very similar, I think that's bang on. In 'The Victors' which I read a while ago, the author mentions that many American veterans of WW2 actually got along with and liked the Germans they met at the end of the war best out of all the various nationalities they met, basically because of Germany being at that time, in some ways, quite progressive and forward thinking, like America at that time, which I thought was very interesting. Of course that is shown in films like AMC (had to mention it:thumbsup and Joyeux Noel too.
i've just finished steinbeck's 'cup of gold' - it took me a while because i've been busy! but it was pretty good. it was his first novel, and was approximately based on the life of a very famous 17th century pirate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgan from wales who plundered most of the caribbean and panama which at the time was seen as impenetrable. it was quite good, lots of buckles being swashed and so on. it was interesting to see steinbeck's later style being quite evident through a lot of it, and he was clearly fascinated by the life of his subject, even though obviously a lot of the book was fictionalised. he took the big main events and padded the inbetween times
edit: and i've just started a book on forensics and the "real" csi work. it's by a woman who was a real csi for many years, and also taught forensics. it's called "never suck a dead man's hand" - relating to an incident where she accidentally wound up with a corpse's hand in her mouth (i've not got that far yet but she has alluded to it). the title's caused a lot of entertainment because i have the book on my kindle rather than in real life, and the kindle contents screen isn't quite wide enough to fit the whole title - it cuts off just before "hand", so when people look at my kindle contents they always think i'm reading something of a different nature altogether.
anyway, i've only read the intro and first chapter but so far it's pretty good - she has a very entertaining style with a lot of humour (which i think in a book like that might be necessary). one of my favourite parts so far was when she was discussing how unrealistic the csi tv shows are - she wrote "i don't recall grissom responding to any burglary calls where the only evidence of the crime was a stranger's turd found floating in the toilet, and when was the last time catherine willows came home after handling a decomp and found a dead maggot in her bra?" - all a bit gruesome but quite funny too, i like when books about a serious subject (and it has got serious parts too, you can tell she was very dedicated to the job) manages to inject some humour.
LOL at the 'sucking a dead man's.....' thing. That sounds interesting. I think real life CSIs must hate the shows because they are pretty unrealistic, but then I don't watch for the forensics, I watch for one particular scientist/detective.
The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseini :bolian: A friend told me about it and i decided to read . Maybe for the first time in my life, ok the second time , i wanted to cry like a baby while reading. I am not angst fan but the story was so hearty...
