Review: Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley

Boy was  this book different than I expected. The only book of Huxley's I had read in the past is his dystopian Brave New World, which this is a marked departure from (or maybe Brave New World is a marked departure from this). Gone is the futuristic setting, the omniscient, despotic government, the Soma. In it's place is a chattering group of wildly irritating British upper class characters who mill around, moving into and out of each others' lives.

The book is rather unstructured, mostly following around said characters as they drink, each, cheat on each other mercifully, and even commit brutal violence against each other. Oh yeah: and they philosophize. Oh boy, do they ever philosophize. During many points of the book, the dialogue degrades into what must be a vehicle for Huxley's own musings over various great, esoteric topics. While these are sometimes insightful and even enlightening, it gets to be a bit much when they stretch to more than a handful of pages. Anyone who has read Ayn Rand's fiction will understand what I mean. I don't know many people in real life who complete a fifteen minute monologue when surrounded by good friends.

Where this novel really succeeds is in its characters. Though they are all caricatures, Huxley creates such an amazing number of them and them manages to keep them all relevant throughout the story's entirety. This perhaps shows the social inbreeding that existed in upper-class British culture in the early twentieth century, but it seems like almost every character knows each other here. It is said that many of these characters are based on real people that Huxley associated during his lifetime. In fact, the only likable character in the entire novel is supposedly based on the author D.H. Lawrence.

While this is hugely different than Brave New World, Huxley's satire still cuts with the same sharp edge when dealing with the sheltered, filthy rich upper class as it does when castigating totalitarianism. As I said, these are not likable characters and I would put all my money down on betting that this is not accidental. They all seem to show a disdain for the poor (or even just the non-filthy rich), work, democratic government, and even each other. If Huxley wanted to show up that the rich were not good people, he has made himself loud and clear. There is no Great-like subtlety here.

I was on the fence about this one. I tore through certain sections of the book and then slogged through others. It's an interested, if flawed, book and I'm glad that I read it, but I don't believe that it has the staying power or accessibility of A Brave New World.

You'll like it if you like: social commentary, writing about early twentieth century England, sharp-witted satire, philosophical meanderings, excellently executed prose.

Review: Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Do you ever read a book and feel like you're in the midst of an inside joke* that you're not privy to? That is pretty much how I felt like the entire time I was trudging my way through Orlando. I'm going to keep this review brief, mostly because I didn't like it, but didn't despise it nearly enough to write a diatribe about it.

Orlando is (duh) about Orlando, an young aristocrat who is growing up in the English Elizabethan Era (1500s for those of you, like me, who are not in the know). He is hopelessly rich and in the good graces of the Queen, which obviously is never a bad thing. Like all young men, he falls in love and has his heart broken by a Russian princess (you've never been trod upon by Eastern European royalty?). He entertains scholars and poets. He travels to Turkey, becomes a woman, and decides that he no longer needs to age.

Yes, he changes from a young man to a young, unaging woman, without hardly any fuss or explanation whatsoever. He goes into a deep sleep for days and wakes up a she. Woolf doesn't find any need to explain the metamorphosis and Orlando him(or rather, her)self isn't too particularly concerned about it either. He merely accepts that he is now a woman and begins to learn the gender, as if he were taking on a role in a play. She even gets married. How domestic.

Also equally as odd and unexplained is that he, then she, is stuck at about thirty-two years of age, physical appearance-wise. Considering that this novel starts in the sixteenth century and ends in early twentieth, I found this peculiar.

All of this silliness would be so much easier to accept if the novel was more readable. The prose is beautiful, but not even remotely flowing. The narrative will be moving along at a brisk pace and out of the blue Woolf brings the flow screeching to a halt by spending several pages describing some bit of minutia. Also, some sentences are so long and unwieldy that it is extremely difficult to parse out the individual phrases to make sense of it all. She definitely knows how to write, though, and makes sure the reader knows it. In the instances that it does flow, Woolf is virtually unmatched in vocabulary and elegance. Unfortunately these instances are few and far between.

Overall, I didn't care for this book one bit. In my opinion, it is the exact work of self-indulgence that steers readers away from many of the well-known "difficult" books. Density is not necessarily a bad thing if the reader is rewarded for making it through the words. I, personally, found no satisfaction from this novel and finished it only so I could start a different one.

I'm going to give it two and a half stars out of five. Only those few and far between examples of masterful writing and the shallow, brief gender-bending analysis of societal roles and behaviors of men and women manage to salvage even that rating. I can't in good conscience recommend this, but if you're in the mood, go right ahead. I won't stop you.

*Yes, I know it really is an inside joke. For those of you who care, it is a semi-biographical (and I use semi in the loosest terms humanly possible) piece on Woolf's female love, Vita Sackville-West. No, she did not change from a man to a woman and no she did not live to be over three hundred years old.

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I am actually behind on reviews. I finished The Reader on the bus to Chicago last Friday, so I owe you all a review for that. Sneak peek: it was much better than Orlando. Be back soon!

Review: Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally

It's hard to believe that there was a time, not too terribly long ago, that Oskar Schindler was not a widely known figure. Sure, he was recognized his his deeds numerous times after World War II, but it took a absolutely chance meeting between an author who needed a new briefcase and a store owner who was touched by the fairness of Schindler years earlier to bring him to the general public's attention. Of course, Steven Spielberg making a movie about him helped, too.

I, like most people out there, had seen the movie. I had never read the book, though, and actually didn't even know that it existed. I was definitely looking forward to reading it when the RNG chose it for me. I was hoping for a change in pace from Treasure Island, and I received it. Schindler's List (also known as Schindler's Ark) won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1982. To simply categorize it fiction, however, does a disservice not only to the extensive research on Schindler and his actions during WWII by Keneally, but an even greater disservice to those who lived and died in the context of this period. It may be considered fiction in that it describes true events in a narrative format, but the author states clearly in the introduction that he takes as few creative liberties as possible in telling this story.

I am not going to delve extensively into the plot of this story. Schindler's List has become so ingrained in popular culture that most people (even those who haven't seen the movie or read the book) know the overall theme. During WWII, Polish Jews are being rounded up into ghettos and, subsequently, into work and extermination camps. Oskar Schindler is a businessman in Krakow who, after he realizes what the "final solution" will be takes it upon himself to save as many Jews as he can, putting his personal safety at risk and financially ruining himself.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the whole story is how unlikely of a candidate Oskar Schindler would seem to be as one responsible for the saving of over 1,000 human lives. Schindler was always motivated as a youngster and seemed to succeed in anything he undertook. Much of this motivation was born from a hatred of his father and a need to be a bigger and greater than him. Not exactly driven by a humanitarian philosophy. He got into the war industry business as a way to make money hand over fist with cheap Jewish labor. He was, in all honesty, a profiteer, an adulterer, and a drinker. Despite the inherent unfairness of his early business using Jewish labor, he treated his workers well and kindly. To say that Schindler was a complex man would be an understatement.

It wasn't later into the war, when the Eastern Front was pushed back by Soviet forces and the "final solution" was defined, that Schindler had a "come to Jesus" moment. Once he realized that the Nazis, against all rational thought, would begin to exterminate all Jews rather than use them to prop up the war effort, he knew that he couldn't sit idly. It is then when the famous "Schindler's List" begins to be drafted. Those lucky enough to be on this list will be brought to a new factory compound that would be owned and operated by Schindler. This factory would be outside the concentration camp system and isolation in a rural area. In other words, it was a relative safe haven.

This is a great novel. The amount of time interviewing those familiar with Schindler during this period is obvious in the extreme detail of the individual anecdotes that fill the pages. This book isn't merely a biography of Oskar Schindler. The stories told, while including Schindler, reveal just as much about the more1,300 men, women, and children he kept safe during this horrific period. It tells deeply personal stories while avoiding much of the melodrama that the film version and many other Holocaust books and films rely on. It tells you what happened in all of its gruesome and saddening details, but it leaves the emotion to the content itself. With a topic like the Holocaust, there is really no need to amplify the pain and suffering of those who lived through it.

The novel kept me enthralled throughout its entirely, even though I had seen the movie. It was hard to read, not because of the writing, but because the content. One can only take so much of this devastating of a topic in one sitting.

When reading, it is difficult to remember that the amazing heroics displayed by Schindler and others saved just over 1,000 people. While this was occurring, thousands upon thousands of other people in positions of authority did not have the courage or moral integrity to do what he was doing. While it may be easy to scoff at the tiny percentage that 1,300 or so individuals makes up of the total number of people who were brutally murdered by the Nazi regime, one quote comes to mind. This was a quote which was engraved on a ring given to Oskar Schindler before he fled the coming Russian troops after the war ended. In Hebrew, it stated "He who saves a single life saves the world entire". What Schindler did was bigger than saving 1,300 individual lives, though this is nothing short of amazing. He showed that even when the world is going crazy and morality is being turned upside down, anyone, even the least likely individual, can step up and do what is right.

I give Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally, #41 on the Radcliffe Rival 100 list, four and a half out of five stars.

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Next up is Orlando by Virginia Woolf. This will be the first novel I've read by Woolf, which is intimidating, but supposedly this is one of her more accessible works. I hope so.

Review: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien

This is going to be a broadly-based, comprehensive review of The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy. If you are interested in shorter reviews of the individual books, they can be found here, here, and here.

When I drew Lord of the Rings as the next books to read and review, I wasn't entirely won over about how enjoyable of an experience it would be. I have liked using the random number generator to choose my books so far because it allows me to get a good mix into what I'm reading. The idea of reading the 1000+ pages of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in a row seemed like it would get boring. Plus I had seen the movies a handful of times so I knew everything that would happen in the books, right?

I was completely wrong on all counts. In crafting this trilogy, Tolkien has created one of the most compelling, lasting works of fiction (note: not just fantasy, but fiction in general) written in the last century. There reasons why the LOTR movies both made money hand over fist and were critically acclaimed and only a small part of that is the crazy awesome use of CGI. The rest of it is the amazing story being told remarkably faithfully to the book trilogy.

I'm not going to go into extreme detail regarding the plot of the book. LOTR is enough of a cultural phenomenon today that almost everyone should have some vague idea of the storyline. Essentially, evil has fallen over Middle Earth and to stop it Frodo, a Hobbit, has to toss a ring forged by the dude responsible for the evil (Sauron) into a volcano. Doesn't sound so hard, right? The kicker is that the volcano is really, really far away and within the kingdom of Sauron. Not to mention, Sauron really, really wants that ring back for himself. Luckily Frodo is accompanied by his trusty friend and servant Sam (also a Hobbit), and is supported by the Fellowship, a small collection of hobbits, men, a dwarf, an elf, and a wizard. Over three books, all of these characters and many other peripheral ones travel, fight, and, in some cases, die all in order to destroy the Ring and save Middle Earth.

That very cursory glance at the plot obviously does not come near doing the book justice. Aside from that amazingly deep main plot line, side plots branch off which are equally (if not more) engrossing and essential to the story. Throughout the trilogy, the Fellowship splits and reunites numerous times as their paths diverge and cross.

The most amazing part of this trilogy is the depth of the history and lore of Middle Earth. Tolkien has invested so much time and effort into the back story of LOTR and the land and "peoples" in it that sometimes it almost reads like historical fiction. This is particularly true when you consider that the copy of the trilogy that I was reading had no less than five appendices totaling over one hundred pages concerning the history of Middle Earth. Tolkien didn't just create a story; he created a world which incorporates not just these three books, but almost everything he has ever written.

In fact, doing an Amazon search for "History of Middle Earth" comes up with numerous results, including a five-volume work titled The Histories of Middle Earth, which was written by Tolkien himself. A deeper look into the subject will find that this work is only a smaller part of a twelve-volume collection of the history of Middle Earth. I challenge you to find another author who has put so much effort into making what he or she created seem real to the reader. In some ways Tolkien has elevated himself beyond "author" into the peculiar status of historian or archivist of something which isn't actually real. Think about that for a minute to consider how crazy that is. I've read nonfiction books concerning World War II and other very, very important times in human history that are less meticulously documented than this work of FICTION.

Despite this, LOTR doesn't read dry or dense. Sure, the geography and lore might have been a bit over my head at times, but this hardly distracted from the story. Sure, the number of songs (yep, songs) in the trilogy struck me as odd, but that is more of a complaint based in my tastes than a deficiency of the trilogy itself. The prose is beautiful, yet not overly flowery. Every notable character, even those periphery, are developed to the greatest extent possible. It is almost impossible to find a flaw in these books.

Sure, not everyone is going to want to read through the trilogy. It takes serious will power to work through any 1000+ page work, but it might take even more to first pick up a book that is lumped into genre that is denigrated by many readers as childish and lightweight: fantasy. Mention 'fantasy' (and to a lessen extent, science fiction) to many avid readers and they might scoff and immediately envision dudes in their parents' basements or the back room of comic book stores rolling a more than six sided dice, opening a pack of Magic cards, or racking up XP on the newest Final Fantasy game.

Before I state how incorrect that notion is, I want to first state that there is nothing wrong with the things in the last sentence. It's just not my cup of tea and sometimes myself and other readers lump fantasy books that we would otherwise enjoy in with those things as an excuse not to read them. And you know what? That's our fault and it's our loss. Sure there are garbage fantasy novels, but let me points you towards Patterson, James; Evanovich, Janet; etc. There is garbage in every genre of every art, but that should not spoil the genre or the great works within any of them.

As one of those scoffers, let me say this: LOTR is a masterpiece. It has everything anyone could ever want in a great piece of literature. Do I recommend this trilogy to other readers out there? Of course I do; if you you haven't read it, get off your behind and go do so. I know I waited way too long. Because of everything listed above, I give The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien five out of five stars.
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With this knocked off the list, the RNG chose my next book for me: Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788. Many of you probably just yawned and maybe started to snore, but as a poli sci undergrad and public affairs grad student, I'm really looking forward to this one.  As always, thanks for reading and look for a review soon!

Quick Review: The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

(I'm going to keep this review extremely brief since I will be writing a more detailed review for the entire trilogy as one this weekend. The review for the Fellowship of the Ring can be found here and for The Two Towers here.)

Five-second summary: Good guys army mustered, army of the dead summoned, Gondor defended, good guy army distracts Sauron eith suicide attack, (while at the same time), Sam saves Frodo, the two go on arduous journey through Mordor, Gollum chomps, ring falls in volcano, Sauron's kingdom defeated, huge celebration, King crowned, Hobbits return to and battle for Shire, Frodo and others depart from Middle Earth .

Pros: By this point, almost all the main characters have been introduced and built up. More large battles in this piece of the trilogy. Wrapped up the story beautifully.
Cons: Geography in Mordor was tough to follow, but didn't really take away from the story. Just picking nits here.

I have changed my mind. I thought that The Two Towers would be my favorite part of the trilogy (as it was in the movie trilogy), but I was mistaken. The Return of the King is the full package; it has action, love stories, and everything else you could want in a good story. I thought the story would be pretty much over after the ring was tossed into the volcano, but my favorite part of the novel was actually after that. The celebration, return trip to the Shire, battle for the Shire, and Frodo's departure from Middle Earth were more compelling than almost any other part of the trilogy. Two thumbs up to this one.

I'll have a lengthier review of the entire trilogy up sometime this weekend and the results of the selection of the next book. Stay tuned!

Quick Review: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

(I'm going to keep this review extremely brief since I will be writing a more detailed review for the entire trilogy as one. The review for the Fellowship of the Ring can be found here.)

Five-second summary: Hobbits escapes orcs, strange treefolk, Isengard falls, Rohan to the rescue, Helm's Deep defended, part of the Fellowship reunited and split up again, Gollum, Sam and Frodo climb dark mountains, big spider attacks!, Frodo captured.

Pros: Great character development, excellent prose, attention to detail is almost unsurpassed (same as Fellowship) plus some good battles. By this time, I've about got all the names of people and places figured out. I guess it was just a matter of time.
Cons: Almost none. I wish that instead of placing the three separate parties' stories one after another, Tolkien would have instead mixed them together, chapter-wise, to keep the time elements straight between the them.

In the movie trilogy, this was my favorite. I'm thinking it will be in novel form, too. It takes everything that was great about the first part of the trilogy and gets rid of almost all of my complaints. You can tell Tolkien really was hitting his stride in The Two Towers. He essentially tells three stories in this one novel, which is very impressive. I'll hopefully be wrapping up The Return of the King this weekend and will have a quick review for it and then a more lengthy review for the entire trilogy next week.

Quick Review: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

(I'm going to keep this review extremely brief since I will be writing a more detailed review for the entire trilogy as one.)

Five-second summary: Frodo given Ring, Fellowship joins together to aid him on his journey, mountains crossed, alot of walking, elves, orcs, and the Fellowship splits.

Pros: Great character development, excellent prose, attention to detail is almost unsurpassed
Cons: Sometimes difficult to follow places/characters being referred too, a bit too much walking/not enough fighting

Overall: While it drags a bit in parts, The Fellowship of the Ring sets the table perfectly for the following two novels. I give it four and a half stars out of five.

Review: The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is amazing that no matter how many things change over time, just as many stay the same. Despite all of the advances (and perhaps, in some way regression) that occurred between the turn of the 20th century and the 21st, some things just didn't move an inch. One of these things, which just happens to be the topic of The Beautiful and Damned, is rich, spoiled kids acting like spoiled, lazy, drunk idiots. Just as the heirs to railroad, steel, and various other industries at the beginning of the century were celebrated by sensationalist media, today every hotel heiress and professional sports player's (or decrepit pornography mogul's) girlfriend has a reality television show. See the parallel?

Just as many of us, though outvoted by devoted watchers, wail and moan at the stupidity of these individuals living their life in front of a camera, people like F. Scott Fitzgerald were doing it back then. The difference is, he was doing it with much better writing. By the time he had written The Great Gatsby, he had nearly perfected the art of daming the repulsive, stomach-turning way in which the richest of the rich lived. The Beautiful and Damned finds him honing his craft. You can see the path from it to The Great Gatsby, but in thematic terms, he still has a ways to go.

Published in 1922, The Beautiful and Damned focuses on Anthony Patch, a young layabout who happens to be the grandson of Adam Patch, an industry mogul turned moralist. Young Anthony, expecting his grandfather to die in the near future, leaving him piles and piles of money, does what any infantile mind with no responsibilities and a large allowance would do: drinks; dines; parties; drinks; has drunken esoteric conversations with his other rich, drunk, vacuous friends; and drinks some more. In the midst of all this drinking he falls in love with, and marries, Gloria Gilbert, a young woman with a sense of self-entitlement that equals Anthony's, but a family fortune which doesn't. After getting married, they drink, party, loathe each other, and come up with plans for what they will do with all of their money when Adam Patch dies.

Adam Patch, on the other hand, has other ideas concerning his capacity for not dying. He just keeps hanging in there, staying alive. During all of this time, Anthony and Gloria's lifestyle is outpacing their allowances. The keep trading down in living conditions, but can't help but spend exorbitant amounts of money on social engagements. Eventually, Adam Patch does die, but to the horror of our young cretins, does not leave a single penny to Anthony. The two are both unwilling to find jobs and slowly move from upper to middle to lower class as the estate appeal goes through the courts.That is the plot of the book in a nutshell. There is a bit more, but I don't want to spoil the conclusion for anyone.

I didn't find The Beautiful and Damned nearly as powerful as The Great Gatsby in its denunciation of the way the rich lived during this time. This doesn't surprise me, however, as the latter is one of the greatest modern novels ever written. Fitzgerald's chacterization of Anthony and Gloria in The Beautiful and Damned just feels a bit heavy handed and over the top. They have literally no redeeming qualities whatsoever. While Gatsby may have been a showoff and was careless with his money and reputation, at least he had a capacity for tenderness and friendship. You still feel the tragedy at the conclusion of the novel. Anthony and Gloria, on the other hand, only inspire half-hearted contempt and quarter-hearted pity. Their behavior is too disgusting to feel sympathy for their tremendous decline, but pathetic enough that you can't hate them.

Fitzgerald's writing is top knotch here. He brings New York City at the beginning of the Twentieth Century to life with his descriptions of the decadent, swinging nightlife enjoyed by the uber-wealthy on one hand and the relative squallor endured by those not quite so fortunate. Seeing the habitat of Anthony and Gloria change over the course of the novel while their outlook remained static was quite interesting.

Is this the best book written in the 20th Century? No, definitely not. It is not even the best novel Fitzgerald wrote. Not even close. What it is, though, is a piece of social commentary that has stood the test of time. The themes are just as relevant today as they were almost one-hundred years ago. I know that I can turn on the television and find Anthony or Gloria on at least ten different channels. This is precisely while I think I'll just open another book instead.

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Speaking of opening another book, the random number generator drew Staligrad: The Fateful Siege (1942-1943) by Antony Beevor. I'm a big WWII fan, so this one should be interesting. It will be the first nonfiction book that I'll have reviewed so far. That will be a bit out of my comfort zone, so I might make it a short review. We'll see. Also, posts will be sparse this weekend. I have friends coming in from out of state and we're all going to the Cincy Beerfest. Hopefully I make it through the weekend alive.

Review: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is a book that I have come across everywhere, but never took the time to read. When I worked at a library, copies of it were always coming and going across the circulation desk. I read excepts of the novel in other media sources. I even came across a piece of it used as a reading section in a standardized test (either LSAT or GRE). Despite this, I never really considered reading it. I guess I just thought it would be boring. Despite all the awards and critics' praise it received, I left it alone.

Obviously, since I am writing a review of the novel, all of that leaving it alone came to an end. The mighty random generator picked its number and we were off to the races.

Invisible Man, which was published in 1952 and received the National Book Award in 1953, is one of the most well-regarded piece of literature written by an African American. It focuses on the unnamed narrator, who recounts his life from a young, idealistic individual to the currently jaded man who lives by gaming the system. The almost six-hundred page novel follows the narrator from life as a college student at an all-black college in the deep south to his search for work in New York City. In those pages, he stumbles from one catastrophe to another before he understands society and his role in it.

On the surface, Invisible Man deals with the plight of African American during the early to mid twentieth century. The plot focuses on the narrator's experiences as a young man in the south, black nationalism, and Marxism and its relationship with African American plight. All of these themes are dealt with rather explicitly and are never analyzed with the soft touch or subtlety that such complex issues need to be approached with. I also believe that there is a good reason for this. Despite the fact that this novel, on its surface, deals primarily with the plight of African Americans, it doesn't seem like Ellison wanted this to be the main theme the reader takes away from the novel.

The much deeper, subtle theme of Invisible Man is that concerning individuality and the way one interacts and fits within society. The title, oft-confused with H.G. Wells' novel, is particularly apt. The protagonist realizes by the time he is narrating the story that he can game the system precisely because no one realizes that he exists unless he wants them to. In the toil and bustle of New York City, he is part of the mass of moving bodies, not a separate entity on his own. When someone does look at him, what they see is either absolutely nothing or a reflection of the viewer's own conceptions. Because of this, his perceived image is merely a collection of stereotypes that those who see him hold. If everyone the narrator interacts with views him in a different manner, then who really is the narrator?

I feel like this is a theme that almost anyone can identify with today. With the rise of various social media platforms, we all have different, new venues to interact with others. Because of this, it seems that one may interact with many more individuals in a much less intimate manner. How do these people view you? How does how you are perceived by individuals on these platforms affect how you behave and what your identity is? Can you identify your "true" identity or is it an amalgamation of the identities others attach to you? It is certainly self-reflecting food for thought.

The prose Ellison used in Invisible Man is beautiful, as well. He conveys the life on the street in Harlem, the electricity in the air at radical rallies, and the internal workings of the narrator equally as artistically. Despite this, the novel is extremely readable.

Anyone can and should read this book. I am extremely glad I had the opportunity to do so. It is so tremendously important not just because of its examination of African American life last century (though this is important), but more so because of its approach to the examination of one's self. This is a theme which transcends race, class, sex, or any other categorization. I could not more highly recommend this novel. It is a great, readable work. I just wish I would have read it earlier.

I give Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison four stars out of five.

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The next book for review will be Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I knew literally novel about it, but it was on the Time Magazine list and apparently was made into a movie just this year. I'm a little under halfway through it already, so there should be a review up in less than a week, time permitting.

New Review: A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

There are a million reasons why I could never be a literary critic. The first, and perhaps most important, is that I don't want to be one. I love reading because it allows me to escape, to relax, and to be entertained. I don't want reading to have to be work; something I have to trudge through. When I see companion books to novels like Ulysses or To the Lighthouse, I shudder. It's not that I don't like the be challenged. Some of my favorite books, including the Modern Library 100's own The Magus, have pushed my literary comfort zone.

With that in mind, there is another very important reason I could never be a literary critic: I do not find the everyday lives of Englishmen and women interesting whatsoever. Tales of the challenging or fall of the aristocracy, of preserving one's chastity, or of summer homes in continental Europe do absolutely nothing for me. It's almost a formula for my eyes glazing over. I'll make it through ten pages and realized I retained absolutely nothing. I know it's probably heresy, but books like The Death of the Heart, Loving, Brideshead Revisited, and, yes, A Room with a View just are not enjoyable for me to read. I realize that they have merit and are appreciated by many greater minds than my own, but I think they're just not very good.

 

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster, as noted above, is one of those novels which deal with the banal details of English life in the early twentieth century. It is listed number seventy-nine on the Modern Library Top 100 list.

It focuses on Lucy, a young Englishwomen who briefly falls in love with George, a young, modern, somewhat uncouth guest at the same hotel she is staying at in Florence. She is confused by her feelings, which she believes are inappropriate, particularly because the rest of the "fancy" guests find George and his father distasteful and vulgar. She leaves Florence and her love to head back to England, where she settles in and gets engaged to an acceptable, traditional member of the aristocracy. She may not be entirely happy, but she is doing what she is supposed to and her life is calm.

As fate would have it, she is reunited with George and her feelings of love for him are sparked again. She wrestles with her feelings for him and the impropriety of them while she is engaged. Eventually, she picks - HA, like I'm going to tell you which gentleman she gets with - and they settle down. Fin.

Obviously, this book is about growing up and of being in love. If a reader couldn't tell this, I would question whether he or she could actually read. The deeper themes includes the cultural clashes of this time between the conservative culture and thought represented by almost all of the characters in the novel; the newer, more radical generation, represented by George and his father; and those caught in the middle (Lucy).

Is it a bad book? Like most of the novels on this list that I haven't read, no. It's just not my thing. I'm not sure I would recommend it generally, but for those fans of Victorian and other British literature, it should suit your fancy. It's relatively short and is very readable, so you're not making a huge commitment even if you don't enjoy it.

I give A Room with a View by E.M. Forster three out of five stars.

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Once I finished this novel, I used an internet random number generator to pick what I will read next. In one of the most pleasant and timely coincidence I could possibly imagine, the number it chose was 114, which is the number associated with Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. 

You couldn't even make this up (well, I guess you could). On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the random number generator chose what very well may be the finest piece of literature by an African-American author. It is actually on the Moden Library, Radcliffe Rival, and Time Magazine best novel lists. It was published in 1952 and was the only novel Ellison had published during his lifetime. It won the National Book Award in 1953.

I've read portions of this novel, but never the whole thing, so it should be a treat. It is only fitting that on this important day, I will be lucky enough to start a novel dealing not only with the difficulties facing African-Americans, but a novel which looks at what ones place is in society as an individual. I am very much looking forward to getting a start on this and will hopefully be back with a review for you all before long.