Watership Down | Richard Adams

Tonight, we just finished our first book club meeting for "Watership Down." Consensus was that the author was largely descriptive but not entirely poetic or memorable. I won't get into our discussions on themes and key areas, unless you're all really curious.

As always, I will provide no spoilers... but I will share my two favourite quotes from the book. These quotes were the only ones that I found vaguely noteworthy.

"Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it. For them there is no winter food problem. They have fires and warm clothes. The winter cannot hurt them and therefore increases their sense of cleverness and security."

and...

"You're all alone, sharp and clear, like a dead branch against the sky."

If the book would have contained more quotes like these two, I would have been hooked. The book really read to me like two separate novels. There was not a lot of plot until the 3rd part (there are four parts) of the novel, where the intrigue started. At this time, the concept of an alternate rabbit society made the story much more interesting.

The author also used quotes in different languages, with no translations. While the quotes loosely described the chapters they represented in the book, they did nothing to foreshadow or add to the story in the slightest.

What I did find very interesting was the portrayal of different areas of society... country folk, Russians, women, etc. I don't know exactly what Adams was trying to say, with his stereotypical portrayals, but it did add a lot of intrigue.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book... but it's probably better than a lot of the other rubbish considered literature these days :).

A Prayer for Owen Meany | John Irving

You are not a fan of literature, if you don't feel something strong for little Owen Meany. In fact, as I write this... I feel I know what he would say to that: WHY DOES EVERYONE INSIST ON CALLING ME LITTLE, AS IF IT IS A DISEASE?

Owen was someone who you just couldn't help but like. His voice threw you for a loop, his height made you take him lightly... but Owen inspired everyone, and he commanded respect. His brash actions had a purpose to them, potentially because he believed everything happend FOR A REASON. His proclamation that he was "GOD'S INSTRUMENT" not only baffled religious church goer'ers (pun intended), but also the very ministers who preached about a higher power.

Now, I have never been a "religious man." Ask me what I was baptized as, and I couldn't tell you. Ask me my philosophies on organized religion, and you will not hear the words that you would ever want to repeat in a congragation filled with the converted. No, I am a man who questions religion but does not entirely cast it aside. My beliefs about religion are the same as my beliefs about a lot of things. Present to me an argument or an opinion, and I will make a decision on it. If I cannot, I will think hard about it.


This book, however, isn't about religion. It's about faith, but it's also about the state of our society, the principles we uphold and the fears we face (or run from). It's about challenging people and principles, and making an impact in the world by being who you are. Owen Meany was ahead of his time. His words from the 60's mirror some of the problems that society is still faced with today. His best friend, and the rest of us, live with the lessons he taught us... in this world filled with questions of faith and morality, and feelings of hopelessness.


Strongly recommend that you give this one a go.

Thomas Hardy & John Irving

"Tess of D'Ubervilles" and Thomas Hardy's work in general, has been reference quite frequently in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." So much so, that I find myself deeply moved enough to warrant reading one of his novels in the near future. Irving cautions us, that Hardy is so difficult to comprehend and unravel that one would even be better off reading Dostoevsky's "The Brother's Karamazov." I was told, by my best friend's mother that this was a book that I needed to read, when I was ready for it. I still don't know if I am. I find it quite ironic though, that at a book club meeting I suggested two novels: "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "The Brother's Karamazov" (both of which were turned down). However, "The Brother's Karamazov" was unanimously consented to in my book club... so I wager that we will get to it either this year, or early next.

Anyhow, I digress. I came onto the blog, to share you a quote from Thomas Hardy (which I excerpted directly from "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I hope you enjoy it... it encompasses a lot of my feelings towards literature.

"A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling. We storytellers are all ancient mariners, and none of us is justifed in stopping wedding guests, unless he has something more unusual to relate than the ordinary experiences of every average man and woman."

And one more, from the point of view of Owen Meany, a chacter of Irving's:

"Think of Hardy as a man who was almost religious, as a man who came so close to believing in God that when he rejected God, his rejection made him ferociously bitter. The kind of fate Hardy believes in is almost like believing in God - at least in that terrible, judgemental God of the Old Testament. Hardy hates institutions: the church- more than faith or belief - and certainly marriage (the instituion of it), and the insitution of education. People are helpless to fate, victims of time - their own emotions undo them, and social institutions of all kinds fail them.

Don't you see how a belief in such a bitter universe is not unlike relious faith? Like faith, what Hardy believed was naked, plan, vulnerable. Belief in God, or a belief that - eventually - has tragic consequences... either way, you don't leave yourself any room for philosophical detachment. Either way, you're not being very clever. Never think of Hardy as clever; never confuse faith, or belief - of any kind - with something even remotely intellectual. That's why I say he was 'almost religious' - because he wasn't a great thinker, he was a great FEELER."

Irving, on television

"Television gives good disaster. I suppose this was nothing but a more vernacular version of my grandmother's observation of the effect of TV on old people: that watching it would hasten their deaths. If watching television doesn't hasten death, it surely manages to make death very inviting; for telvision so shamelessly sentimentalizes and romanticizes death that it makes the living feel they have missed something- just by staying alive."

400 pages through. Irving has made this novel far too long, but he does bring up some very interesting points throughout. The hilariousness of the first four chapters is in total contrast to the seriousness of the last four chapters (although, I must admit to not being able to trust my emotions entirely, right now).

It's not "The World According to Garp," but it is very spellbinding, just the same. Will post some information about the bookclub, shortly.

Frames can't catch you when you're moving like that

I've had a difficult few months, and am only now getting re-orientated. I must admit, it is a long and tiresome process. Quit a job, get a new job, meet a woman, worry about her, get addicted to something, try to break the addiction...

...meanwhile, bills add up. Speeding tickets are handed out. People get sick. People are hospitalized. People die.

With all the challenges, I appreciate that people just want to give up. And even if they are strong enough not to give up, they go about life just trying to make things easier. I guess this is what hurts me the most about society. As things become more difficult, people take them for being unchallengeable. As a result, these things become more and more difficult and people become less and less willing to fight them.

Someone is always talking about 'picking your battles'. I think the common misconception is that the only battles worth fighting are the ones that have the highest payoff for a minimal amount of effort. These types of 'challenges' are somtimes called the "low, hanging fruit." My point is, forget about what is the easiest to accomplish... try to figure out what is the BEST thing to accomplish. Do it, no matter how hard. Cut things in your life that will make it easier for you to accomplish that one thing. When you accomplish it, the world (whether it's YOUR world, or the world in general) will be a better place.

With the amount of messages that are constantly thrown at us, we have a tendency to be overstimulated. I love having this conversation with my girlfriend while she is away in India, because she is constantly overstimulated. The whole environment, which is generally the case when you are thrust in a place that is extremely different (cultural shock), has a tendency to overwhelm. So much emotion, so much difficulty in doing small things, etc. These societies get this way, because people do not challenge things when they should. As such, things get harder and harder as time moves on.

Take the European way of life. If you were to try to introduce some of the things we have here into a remote area of France, imagine how the french would rebell. They would put up a stink and fight it until one party was completely dead. Here, we get upset and we just let it happen. Why? Because there are too many things to worry about. We just don't have the time for it.

The only thing I have found that combats this type of behaviour, is to cut things out of my life that further drain me. That's one good thing that I have noticed since I completely cut cable television out of my life. I finally have time for me and my brain to relax. To me, it's better to be lazy with my own thoughts than to be lazy while a television throws a constant barrage of messages at me. If you think about it, what is television? Is it a means to entertain? Is it a means to numb the mind? Personally, I just think it's a way for corporations to get into your homes at times when you are most vulnerable. They should really be paying us for the privilege, instead of us throwing away $100/month to invaded by their messages.

My point is this. We all lead busy, strenuous lives. They are all getting more and more strenuous as time goes on. If you want to be able to have the energy to fight for things that are important and not just the 'low, hanging fruit' than you must cut out things that overstimulate you. I'm not saying that it's television for everyone, but there is something that everyone can find that has little value to them. This can be sacrificed for something that creates more value, either for yourself, the world, or both. I may sound preachy here, but I encourage you to find it... you just may feel like you have more energy, and that you're more yourself.