For Whom The Bell Tolls | Ernest Hemingway

After reading "For Whom The Bell Tolls" I needed to catch my breath and dwell in what happened. I'm not going to give it away, or anything... and let me give you the gist of what the book is about.

Robert Jordan, a military man, is given a war objective to blow a particular bridge in Spain. This book deals with the troubles and tribulations of this man, leading a guerrilla group to accomplish this task. Insightful and heart wrenching.

I think I liked this book more than Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea", but the books are completely different in style. If you hated Hemingway's tendency to write paragraph long sentences in "The Old Man and the Sea", you'll be pleasantly surprised at this different literary style.

This war book is a must read (along with Boris Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago"). It's not like war is portrayed in the media... and it's less about constant battling and more about thought processes, coping with war / killing and about how love changes a man.

After reading this novel, I'll have to eventually check out more Hemingway. "A Farewell to Arms" immediately comes to mind, but it will be a long while before I get to it. "The Three Musketeers" is next.

============
QUOTATIONS
============
"So if your life trades its seventy years for seventy hours I have that value now and I am lucky enough to know it. And if there is not any such thing as a long time, nor the rest of your lives, nor from now on, but there is only now, why then now is the thing to praise and I am very happy with it."

...


"If this was how it was then this was how it was. But there was no law that made him say he liked it. I did not know that I could ever feel what I have felt, he thought. Nor that this could happen to me. I would like to have it for my whole life. You will, the other part of him said. You will. You have it now and that is all your whole life is; now. There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is you life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life."

The Eclectic World of Bookcases

Over the past year, I realized how hit and miss buying bookcases really is. If you want something incredibly cheap, you can get a fairly sturdy (albeit, flimsy when compared to wood or thicker particle board) for around $50... upwards to $150 for just slightly better quality. If you want something made out of real wood, get ready to pay an arm and a leg. Given that I'm a cheap bastard (but a book lover), I had to look for something in between. I would surprised to see how expensive IKEA bookcases are, for what you get. The quality is pretty crappy, IMO. Much worse than IKEA products of 15 years ago (as my father has some IKEA bookcases). So in the end, I settled on one from Staples Business Depot. I ended up paying around middle of the line, and the best deal, IMO, given the quality of the bookcases. Cost me $179 each. Two days after, they jumped to $199 each, so I guess I got them just in time.

Took me just over 2 hours to put the first one up (bought two). It looks really nice, so I'm very impressed. That being said, my back hurts from all the bending over, but it was worth it. Assembly wasn't that bad... after I got over my own incompetence. The instructions were pretty decent, since I never read anything and only really look at the pictures. If you can't look at the picture and tell that they've flipped a bookcase, then you have bigger issues. Anyway, I think I'll put the other one up tomorrow as I believe a beer is in order.

Editor's Note: Scratched the beer and put up the second bookcase. I'll regret it as I fall asleep in my cube tomorrow. I also dropped a book and totally ruined it... it was The Art of War. Fitting, after my war with the bookcase.

Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, First Meetings in the Enderverse | Orson Scott Card

Well I completed the last books I had in the Ender saga.

Shadow of the Hegemon was truly forgettable. The book was about life after the Bugger War, and consisted about military strategy on Earth. As always, some interesting dialogue between characters but nothing with the pinash of the first two books, or even Ender's Shadow.

Shadow Puppets was about the relationship between Bean and Petra, two soldiers from Battle school. Book was slightly entertaining, but it was not a blow you away like Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead and Ender's Shadow. Just one of the novels you should read, if you're into the whole series.

First Meetings is a book for nerds. It gives you more background to the characters (ie: how one character would meet another). At first, I was disappointed that the first publication of Ender's Game (as a novella) was in this book, but after reading it, it gave me even more an appreciation for the novel. I think Card changed some characters and some important points. To me, that is useful knowledge. He created the bones first, but it's the flesh that he surrounded it with that morphed the book into a masterpiece.

So, I still have to read Shadow of the Giant, but I don't own it yet so it will take me a little more time to obtain a copy. I'm going back in time a little bit (but still on a war kick) to "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Hemingway. It's time for me to get back to classic literature. Now that I have finally brought my books home, I can make decisions that seem right to me at the time. Reading the book that your mind feels ready for, in my opinion, is always helpful.

============
QUOTATIONS
============
"Binding yourself to another person and to the children you make together, that's life. And you can't do it if your life is centered on your ambitions. You'll never be happy. It will never be enough, even if you rule the world." -Shadow of the Hegemon, pg. 155.

"We're all tools in somebody's kit. But that doesn't mean we can't make tools out of other people. Or figure out interesting things to use ourselves for." - First Meetings In the Enderverse

Ender's Shadow | Orson Scott Card

The Ender's Shadow experience is now over. What a truly powerful and inspiring novel. I would recommend reading Ender's Game first, but you don't really need to read the rest of the books in the series to enjoy Ender's Shadow. I will talk later on how the concept of a parallel novel inspired me, as I have often thought of the idea on creating a novel based on expectations and perceptions of reality.

With all great novels, I feel lucky to have completed this novel during my lifetime... but sad that is it ultimately over. Since I'm already 5 books through, I'll read the last two but I am not really all that excited about them. I don't think they will compare at all... so I guess I will be expecting something closer to Children of the Mind, or Asimov's Foundation and Earth. Nothing spectacular, but a decent read.

With so many great novels that I still have yet to experience, I find myself scared that I will not get to every one of them. Even if I am able to read 2 books a month, that will only equate to 24 books a year and 240 books in 10 years. Hard to prioritize which ones will get my attention.

I also have a tendency to read the less 'pretty' books that I own, because I don't want to damage them. Also, there is probably a small part of me that looks at them all as if they were the 'green light' in Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby. After I read them, they will be over and I will never experience them the same way again... and the longing to read them will be gone. There is also, arguably, a greater worry in that they will not live up to the asinine expectations that I have of them. I guess that is part of the excitement though... will they live up to the expectations or will they fizzle like the "great" Sound and the Fury.

Time will tell.

===========
QUOTATION
===========
"In the military you don't get trusted positions just because of your ability. You also have to attract the notice of superior officers. You have to be liked. You have to fit in with the system. You have to look like what the officers above you think that officers should look like. You have to think in ways that they are comfortable with.

The result was that you ended up with a command structure that was top-heavy with guys who looked good in uniform and talked right and did well enough not to embarrass themselves, while the really good ones quietly did all the serious work and bailed out their superiors and got blamed for errors they had advised against until they eventually got out."

-Ender's Shadow, pg 170