Through the Looking Glass | Lewis Carroll

Publication Date: 1871

Author's Nationality: English

Author's Real Name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

Original Language: English

Genre: Classics (children's literature)

Pages: 121

I was not expecting this sequel to be better than the novel before it, but that's exactly how I felt and I believe it had something to do with having some sort of structure.  Alice walks through the looking-glass to a world on the other side and finds herself in a real life chess game.  The storytelling was original and I found myself seeing the pieces on a chessboard come alive and interact.  The Queens in the story move so fast, and if you think about it... this makes perfect sense.  There is no other piece in chess that can move all the way across the board in one move.  That said, the King doesn't even try to catch her... and why should he?  He can only move one space at a time.  In addition, the whole world created moves backwards... and isn't this just what a good chess player does?  Doesn't he anticipate the moves that will be made next and then makes something which he believes will take him to that eventual anticipated move?

There were numerous themes that captivated me in this work, as well.  Nature and human structures were constantly changing into one another, reminding me that we are inevitably linked and everything we create effects nature.  The work was slightly more humours as well... I actually laughed when Carroll described a living plum pudding as having "a thick, suety sort of voice" which took me back to the first time my mother tried to use suet (beef or mutton fat) to make a plum pudding... how they were originally made back in the day.

Humpty Dumpty also makes an appearance, and contrary to the Disney movie... he is the one who comes up with the term 'unbirthday'.  In this work, we also hear the complete poem "Jabberwocky" and the lovely "The Walrus and the Carpenter" story.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this work... much more than the original "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."  I'm wondering if anyone else enjoyed this work much more than the first book.  I'd be interested to hear from the blogger community.

Book Beginnings | August 27th

It's Friday again, and time for Book Beginnings (sponsored by Becky at 'Page Turners').

As you know, I'm out of the country right now but I am having an out of body experience and publishing these posts in the virtual world from the past.  Think Hot Tub Time Machine without a horrible script, a hot tub or a time machine... really just me posting things a few days before I leave... in a magical forethinking kind of way.

That aside, here is the first line from John Irving's "The Fourth Hand":

"Imagine a young man on his way to a less-than-30-second event -- the loss of his left hand, long before he reached middle age."

I don't mind this foreshadowing right off the bat.  It sets an expectation right away and knowing Irving, the story behind this you're not going to be able to guess.  It's going to get bit off by a lion or he's a knife salesman and someone knocks him over and the knife lands an inch away from his left hand and then some crazy kid that got into his parent's drug stash comes at him with a meat cleaver.  It's going to be something like that, and this opening line gets the imagination flowing.  It's a technique that has been used before (it's nothing transcendent), but it gets the job done.

The one thing I don't like is that he starts it out with 'imagine' which is essentially like a salesman saying 'picture this!' before he gives his pitch.  Thoughts?

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll

Publication Date: 1865
Author's Nationality: English
Author's Real Name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson *
Original Language: English
Genre: Classics (children's literature)
Pages: 96

I've been a fan of the Disney film "Alice in Wonderland" since I was a child.  The story has always been very magical to me and I have certain favourites like the smoking caterpillar, the story of the walrus and the carpenter [actually in "Through the Looking Glass"], etc and I was very excited to start reading the original work.  Unfortunately, I don't have an edition with the original illustrations, but I have a nice copy from Dragon's World Ltd with some coloured illustrations by Malcolm Ashman. Overall I was pleased with the edition and the illustrations, but I long to read the original edition.

Moving on from that tangent, I was less than pleased with this book.  Maybe it has something to do with the Disney movie version I have so long admired, but I found there were parts in this book that did nothing for me... and I think Disney was correct in leaving them out.  There was a point with the Duchess who eventually turns into a pig and an episode with too much pepper, an episode with a sad turtle and a gryphon... and I just didn't feel they added much to the story.  As a whole, there were many more animal characters than in the movie and while it muddied it for me, I'm sure that some children would appreciate the diversity.  That said, it was not a novel for children to learn about animals, because they had obviously been given human traits not akin to their real nature in the wild.  This led to a further imagination for the reader, but I could see adults having to do a lot of explaining afterwords to inquisitive minds.  Perhaps this potential interaction between parents and their children is a good thing.

I'm torn a little with Carroll's wit.  Through the eyes his child protagonist, Alice, he was able to break down the meaning of things we say every day and turn them into literal meanings.  This had the effect of frustrating Alice while adding a bit of humour to the story but also a feeling of "okay, Carroll... we get it already.  Don't you think you're overdoing it a little?" 

The other thing that I never realized was that through the book references to the Jabberwocky appeared quite randomly.  In 'Through the Looking Glass', the poem is listed in its entirety.

On the whole, the story was an enjoyable one.  I could not imagine my life without Carroll's stories, but I just prefer the way Disney adapted it... which is unusual given that I usually despise changes from the original.  I will post another review on "Through the Looking Glass" shortly... as my thoughts towards that work are incredibly different.
----

*Note: This pseudonym was a play on his real name; Lewis was the anglicised form of Ludovicus, which was the Latin for Lutwidge, and Carroll an Irish surname similar to the Latin name Carolus, from which the name Charles comes
+Note2: In 1931, the book was banned in Hunan, China, because "animals should not use human language" and it "puts animals and human beings on the same level". In Woodsville High School in Haverhill, New Hampshire, the story also was banned, because it had "expletives, references to masturbation and sexual fantasies, and derogatory characterizations of teachers and of religious ceremonies". -Blogger's Note: The former is hilariously absurd and I didn't see those references at all... did I miss something?  It probably has something to do with the fact that Carroll liked to paint children in the nude... but it's important to note that no cases of paedophilia were ever substantiated.

A New Award and a Trip!

I have pretty nice friends. 

Thanks to Toni from Nowhere Fast who gets points* in my books for being so thoughtful and extra points* for being from New Zealand... the only land that I've never been to but feel like I belong to.  I have seriously considered leaving everything to move to New Zealand without even visiting first.  It just seems like my kind of place. 

*The points can't be redeemed for anything, but that doesn't mean they aren't nice to have.

Speaking of traveling, I'm about to go on a little trip myself to Europe for a little longer than a week.  I'm nearly packed and ready to go (I leave Wednesday), but that doesn't mean I have forgotten about the blogger community.  You'll still see a couple of posts this week and next because I have cheated and scheduled some reviews to post later on.

I've decided to take "The Fourth Hand" (note that the Canadian version has a 'u' in it) by John Irving because I have a cheap paperback copy that is pretty much ruined anyway and I won't mind if it gets damaged.  I've read "The World According to Garp" and "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and loved them both... but I'm trying not to get too pumped over this next one because I've been told there is a big drop off from those two... and maybe "Cider House Rules" as well. 

Anyways, that's it for me.  If you also have this book sitting on your shelf and want to read along I'd be thrilled to see what you thought of it.  I wonder that if you have a positive vacation experience if you enjoy the book more.  I have found memories of reading "Ender's Game" in a campground late at night just outside of Venice.

Buying in multiples

I have a serious book purchasing problem.  The reason for this is that I get too excited when I see a book that I really want to read or a book that is a great edition or publication.  I try to hold back on some, waiting for a better edition, but sometimes I just have to have the book and I end up regretting it later when I have multiple copies lining my bookshelves.

I thought I would detail my problem and how the tiered system works.

1. Paperbacks

I barely ever buy paperbacks, but I do receive a bunch as gifts.  I'm not a large fan of paperbacks, but I do have a thing for the ones that have special pages that are unevenly cut.  I don't know what they call this technique but it gets me every time.  A good example is the Centennial Edition of "The Grapes of Wrath".  What do they call this technique?  Anyway, I tend to take paperbacks on trips because I'm not really concerned if they get damaged and they are light weight (which is great for backpacking).  I may leave them at hostels too if I need the space, but I have yet to do so.

2. Hardcovers

I try to buy most of my books in hardcover, because I just like the structure.  I don't like when the spine on paperbacks gets creased, and while these spines crack, I never buy a hardcover with this problem and I don't crack them myself.  The preference is for the larger first edition copies, but I find I have a lot of undersized firsts which really aren't worth anything... but I like the originality of the artwork.  Note that a first edition will eclipse the third tier.

3. Modern Library / Everyman's Library

I love these types of editions, both smaller sized hardcovers which have a consistent spine which looks GREAT on my bookshelves.  I prefer Everyman to the Modern Library's silver covers, and Everyman also has chronological histories of the works of the author, his life, historic events going on in society at the time, and works that other authors are publishing at the time.  It's great reference, and it's really helpful for book club discussions.

4. The Folio Society

Each work is of a limited print run, and they are all works of art.  I also LOVE slipcases and I can't tell you why.  Again with the structure, I imagine... and they just make more sense then dust jackets which tear easily and really don't protect the book from anything, especially dust.

5. Easton Press & Franklin Library

These works are bound in leather.  Easton's are all full leather (mainly bonded) and Franklins can be faux leather, quarter leather (where the spine is bound in leather) or full leather.  These books look great on the shelves, but they are harder to read.  I usually wear white gloves so my hands don't transfer their natural oils, but this is fairly OCD of me.  Other than the look, I really enjoy the high quality paper and smell of the leather.  It's hard to pick a favourite of the two, but I think I enjoy the Franklin Library older versions (from the late 70's) the best because the quality of the leather is remarkable.

100 Greatest Books of All-Time (Franklin Library)

Another list!  This one is from 1974 through 1982 - if you subscribed, you received a book a month for 8 years.  Is this list better or worse than the previous lists?

The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
Oresteia by Aeschylus
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen
Five Comedies by Aristophanes
Politics by Aristotle
Confessions of St. Augustine
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (READ)
Selected Writings of Sir Francis Bacon
Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac
The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
Jane Eyre By Charlotte Brontë (READ)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (READ)
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
Tales From The Arabian Nights by Sir Richard F. Burton
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (READ)
Don Quixote de La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Plays by Anton Chekhov
Analects of Confucius
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Stories of Guy de Maupassant
Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Philosophical Works of René Descartes
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Poems of John Donne
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (READ)
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (READ)
Collected Poems (1909–1962) of T. S. Eliot
Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Plays by Euripides
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (READ)
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (READ)
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin
The Basic Works of Sigmund Freud
The Poetry of Robert Frost
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Favorite Household Tales of the Brothers Grimm Brothers Grimm
The Federalist by Hamilton, Madison and Jay
The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (READ)
The Iliad by Homer
The Odyssey by Homer
Plays by Henrik Ibsen
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Nine Tales of Henry James
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Trial by Franz Kafka (READ)
Poems of John Keats
Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
Five Stories of Thomas Mann
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Political Writings of John Stuart Mill
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Seven Plays by Molière
Four Plays of Eugene O'Neill
Political Writings of Thomas Paine
Pensees by Blaise Pascal
Satyricon by Petronius
The Republic by Plato
Twelve Illustrious Lives by Plutarch
Tales of Edgar Allan Poe
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
Six Tragedies by Jean Racine
Political Writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau
Eight Comedies by William Shakespeare
Six Histories by William Shakespeare
Poems of William Shakespeare
Six Tragedies by William Shakespeare
Three Plays by Bernard Shaw
The Tragedies of Sophocles
The Red and the Black by Stendhal (READ)
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (READ)
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (READ)
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (READ)
Walden by Henry D. Thoreau
The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (READ)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (READ)
The Aeneid by Virgil
Candide by Voltaire (READ)
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Selected Poems of William Butler Yeats
Nana by Emile Zola

Update (Dec 23rd, 2010): I've only read 17 on this list... but I can't count all Shakespearean tradgedies as an example, because I haven't read ALL of them.  Also, I haven't been reading poetry or essays so that cuts out a few.

Book Beginnings | August 20th

Now it's time for Book Beginnings [a Page Turner TM idea]!  I'm currently reading "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", and here's the opening line:

"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversation?' "

Not a very intriguing opening, IMO.  Considering that this story is pretty messed up (in a good way), this start is a little boring.  It does show Alice's anxiousness, but it doesn't really endear the reader to her.  Is Alice an endearing character anyway?

100 Greatest Books Ever Written (Easton Press)

I love lists of all sorts.  I love countdowns, top 10's and the movie "High Fidelity" because it has tons of lists.  Something about them makes me want to critique and analyze and create my own lists.  In the literature world, the Modern Library gets all the press.  In a past blog post I have given some credence to the list by TIME Magazine and now I thought I would post a list that gets very little attention at all... the one from Easton Press.  Here is their list of the 100 Greatest Books Ever Written.


Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (READ)
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift (READ)
Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville
A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway (READ)
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
The Odyssey by Homer
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man by James Joyce
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Tales From The Arabian Nights by Richard Burton
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Candide by Voltaire (READ)
Oedipus The King by Sophocles
The Hunchback Of Notre Dame [Notre-Dame De Paris] by Victor Hugo
The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
The Sea Wolf by Jack London
Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmund Rostand
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Collected Poems by Robert Browning
The Essays Of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (READ)
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Collected Poems by John Keats
On The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Collected Poems by Robert Frost
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving
Animal Farm by George Orwell (READ)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (READ)
She Stoops To Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith
Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck (READ)
Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen (READ)
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (READ)
Aesop's Fables by Aesop
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (READ)
Politics And The Poetics by Aristotle
The Aeneid by Virgil
Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (READ)
Hamlet by William Shakespeare (READ)
Pygmalion And Candida by George Bernard Shaw
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Romeo And Juliet by William Shakespeare (READ)
The Cherry Orchard And The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
The Analects of Confucius by Confucius
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats
The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (READ)
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (READ)
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
Beowulf
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Neclace And Other Tales by Guy de Maupassant
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Fathers And Sons by Ivan Turgenev (READ)
Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (READ)
War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The History of Early Rome by Livy
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott
Tess Of The D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (READ)
Alice's Adventure In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (READ)
Dracula by Bram Stoker (READ... but so long ago)
The Rubáiyát Of Omar Khayyám by Omar Khayyám
The Red And The Black by Stendhal (READ)
A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (READ)
The Republic by Plato
Collected Poems by Emily Dickinson
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
Silas Marner by George Eliot
The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Billy Budd by Herman Melville
The Confessions by St. Augustine
Tales of Mystery And Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott (READ)
The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler (READ)
The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner (READ)
Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (READ)
Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (READ)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (READ)
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
 
Oh, now I get why this list is never mentioned.  Look how much Shakespeare is on it!  People hate that!
 
I've read over a quarter (28*) of these books [which is more than any other list] so I'm feeling pretty good.  Since most of the works were published in the late 70's, the list must represent popular sentiment from the time.  I wonder how they came up with it... anyone know?

*Updated December 2010..

National Geographic

I have been a subscriber to National Geographic since 2007, and I must say that the experience has really enriched my life.  My knowledge of geography has expanded, as has my knowledge of animals and nature's uncanny ability to evolve... but it goes further than that.  I understand some of the problems faced in other parts of the world which I may not hear about otherwise, I see patterns in the follies of man and I get valuable insight into the absurdities of holding grudges. 

In addition, I appreciate art on a completely different level.  Images strike tremendous chords.  As I read and visualize, my emotions are stirred.  I understand the duality of hating and loving humanity at the same time and the duality of awe and fear.  The power of perspective in society is a continual lesson.

I know I will become a lifelong reader of this magazine because it does so much good for the world and society and because of the tremendous amount of things I get out of it.  This month, I have not read very much literature because I have been so focused on getting through the last three months of my subscription (I usually don't put it off that long), but the experience I get from nearly every article is a breath of fresh air in my life.

Blogger Question: What magazines or websites or newscasts do you read/listen to that you couldn't imagine your life without?

What's your book selection strategy?

The more blogs I come across, the more I enjoy hearing about how people choose which books to read.  The quote "nobody promises you tomorrow" was passed on by a virtual friend of mine, and has completely stuck in my head.  Let's face it - not very many people read (or do anything) as if it was the last thing they will ever do.  Morbid?  Perhaps, but I think it teaches us that living in the moment is more important than anything else [provided you don't have to worry about physiological or other basic needs - thanks Maslow].

The hardest thing with running a book club is what books you will read and in what order.  I use a democratic selection process, where people vote first if they want to read the work or not and second, they rank the top five.  Based on that, the cream floats to the top, the water falls to the bottom and then there is a hybrid of things in between.  We usually revisit the list periodically depending on when the cream runs out and we start to get into the middle works.  While this process continues to be refined [there are many criteria which I have removed for the sake of not running onto a tangent], it seems to work as of now.

The question that has been plaguing me (and really, this is too strong a word for such a thought), is what do I read in between our monthly selections?  Along with the one book a month I read, I can usually make it to about 8 more... and I have a tough time making a judgement call on what comes next.  I'd like to see what the blogging community would choose, if they were me.  Keep in mind that I generally prefer classics, but we read only shorter (less than 500 page) classics and have a wide range of author choices (but not more than two works from each).

So here is what I am contemplating:
1. Do I read the book I feel most passionate first in case I get hit by a bus tomorrow?
2. Do I read longer novels since I will not get to them in the book club?  Keep in mind that this limits how many books I can read and I may lose continuity if each book takes me 3 months or so (yes, I'm a slow reader).
3. Do I read books that the the book club votes down since there will be no chance for a live discussion?
4. Do I read modern books and/or non-fiction instead of classic fiction?
5. Do I try to make my way through the modern library list from 1 to 100?  100 to 1?
6. Do I go the route of a true bibliophile and read everything by one author before moving on to the next?
7. Do I just read whatever speaks to me at the time? [my current ad-hoc methodology]

What would you do?

I won an award!

I opened up my mailbox this morning and learned that this site won it's first award!  Yay!  I am the proud recipient of "The Versatile Blogger" Award!  Upon a review of the presenter's website, Ordinary Reader, I found out that there doesn't seem to be any rationale for this award at all except that as a condition of acceptance, I need to send this award to 15 fellow bloggers and tell some 7 interesting facts about me and link to the presenter's site (see above).  I'm going to scale this back a little since I'm new to the community and I think it may lose a little something if you keep linking to 15 people.  I'm instituting a top three.

Facts:
1. The last party I went to was in a mattress store.  I'm being serious, and it's a long story.
2. Some of my fondest memories of books include when my grandmother used to read me "The Wind in the Willows" and when my grandfather gave me a book that was dear to him because it changed his life (self-help).
3. I started biting my nails due to The Bernstein Bears book entitled "Bad Habits."  I thought it was a stupid thing that no one would do, so I tried it and two decades later I'm still a nail biter.
4. My one bedroom apartment contains 5 overflowing bookshelves... and four of them are taller than my 6+ feet.
5. My favourite book is "The Catcher in the Rye" - hardly eclectic now due to it's popularity.
6. If I became rich, the first purchase I would make is a complete leather bound set of the works of Ernest Hemingway.  Yes, I am one of those leather book people.
7. My favourite place to read is next to a lake in the summer, in a hammock with a slight breeze on my face.

Cool sites I'm giving this award to:
100 Books in 100 Weeks
Kristen's Book Blog
Page Turners

Check them all out!

Heidi | Johanna Spyri

Publication Date: 1880

Author's Country: Switzerland

Original Language: German

Genre: Classics (children's literature)

Pages: 240 [9.2 hours in Audiobook format]

Synopsis (Wikipedia):

"Heidi's Years of Wandering and Learning (German: Heidis Lehr- und Wanderjahre), usually abbreviated Heidi, is a novel about the events in the life of a young girl in her grandfather's care, in the Swiss Alps. It was written as a book "for children and those who love children" as quoted from its subtitle in 1880 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri.  Two sequels, Heidi Grows Up and Heidi's Children, were not written by Spyri, but by her English translator, Charles Tritten. The Heidi books are among the best-known works of Swiss literature."

"Heidi" is a seemingly simplistic children's novel about a young orphaned Swiss girl growing up in the mountains with her grandfather.  She falls in love with the mountains of Switzerland and the simplistic lifestyle and beautiful nature she is surrounded with.  When a relative finds a family for her to live with in Germany, she is forced to move there and befriends Clara, a sick child of a wealthy father.  Heidi comes down with homesickness which has a direct effect on her health, and the doctor orders her to go home to Switzerland.  Clara visits with not-so-surprising results.

Nearly everyone Heidi meets falls in love with her.  She is caring and just loves life.  Her innocence is refreshing and her compassion for others is inspiring.  This novel was a feel good story which reminds us how precious all our days on earth are, how a kinship with nature is natural, on how guilt destroys us internally, how God has a plan for us all (or if you're not religious - how not to get upset over bad events because they have the tendency to lead to great things) and in the power of love. 

I was a little taken aback by two things when listening to this work.  One was the simplistic reading of the audiobook narrator, which made the book seem more childish then it would have seemed from my own narration [although kids would probably love this].  The other was the overpowering emphasis on God in the book, which really irritated me.  I suppose that during the time, this was just another important layer in the development of a sweet child of Heidi's nature, but I found it took away from the story.  If you're not a religious person, you can take other things from this... the importance of hope, positive thinking, etc.

This is the first book that I listened to in audiobook format and I must say that it's not the same as actually reading a novel, but none-the-less it was a positive experience that I will delve into again.  I will be very selective with my audiobooks though, choosing works that I probably will never get a chance to read [as my existing reading list is too large... and still growing... for one lifetime].  As far as "Heidi" goes, I would recommend reading it... I think it's a perfect book to read to a child or someone trying to 'get back to basics' in a hectic lifestyle.  Nothing controversial (other than the religious aspect) and a happy ending with an endearing protagonist.

Time Magazine's 100 Greatest

The goal posts:

TIME critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo pick the 100 best English-Language novels from 1923 to the present.

Since I've been on a kick to see how many novels I've read on these lists, I figured I would give TIME magazine's list a shot.  It's a bit more modern, so I suppose that I'll do WORSE with this one.  I tend to read a lot of classics that are pre-1923.  Why did they pick that year, I wonder?

The Adventures of Augie March (1953), by Saul Bellow
All the King's Men (1946), by Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral (1997), by Philip Roth
An American Tragedy (1925), by Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm (1946), by George Orwell (READ)
Appointment in Samarra (1934), by John O'Hara
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970), by Judy Blume
The Assistant (1957), by Bernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-Birds (1938), by Flann O'Brien
Atonement (2002), by Ian McEwan
Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison
The Berlin Stories (1946), by Christopher Isherwood
The Big Sleep (1939), by Raymond Chandler
The Blind Assassin (2000), by Margaret Atwood
Blood Meridian (1986), by Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited (1946), by Evelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), by Thornton Wilder
Call It Sleep (1935), by Henry Roth
Catch-22 (1961), by Joseph Heller (READ)
The Catcher in the Rye (1951), by J.D. Salinger (READ)
A Clockwork Orange (1963), by Anthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), by William Styron
The Corrections (2001), by Jonathan Franzen
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), by Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of Time (1951), by Anthony Powell
The Day of the Locust (1939), by Nathanael West
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), by Willa Cather
A Death in the Family (1958), by James Agee
The Death of the Heart (1958), by Elizabeth Bowen
Deliverance (1970), by James Dickey
Dog Soldiers (1974), by Robert Stone
Falconer (1977), by John Cheever
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), by John Fowles
The Golden Notebook (1962), by Doris Lessing
Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953), by James Baldwin
Gone With the Wind (1936), by Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath (1939), by John Steinbeck (READ)
Gravity's Rainbow (1973), by Thomas Pynchon
The Great Gatsby (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald (READ)
A Handful of Dust (1934), by Evelyn Waugh
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter (1940), by Carson McCullers
The Heart of the Matter (1948), by Graham Greene
Herzog (1964), by Saul Bellow
Housekeeping (1981), by Marilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. Biswas (1962), by V.S. Naipaul
I, Claudius (1934), by Robert Graves
Infinite Jest (1996), by David Foster Wallace
Invisible Man (1952), by Ralph Ellison
Light in August (1932), by William Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), by C.S. Lewis (READ)
Lolita (1955), by Vladimir Nabokov (READ)
Lord of the Flies (1955), by William Golding (READ)
The Lord of the Rings (1954), by J.R.R. Tolkien (READ)
Loving (1945), by Henry Green
Lucky Jim (1954), by Kingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved Children (1940), by Christina Stead
Midnight's Children (1981), by Salman Rushdie
Money (1984), by Martin Amis
The Moviegoer (1961), by Walker Percy
Mrs. Dalloway (1925), by Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch (1959), by William Burroughs
Native Son (1940), by Richard Wright
Neuromancer (1984), by William Gibson
Never Let Me Go (2005), by Kazuo Ishiguro
1984 (1948), by George Orwell (READ)
On the Road (1957), by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), by Ken Kesey
The Painted Bird (1965), by Jerzy Kosinski
Pale Fire (1962), by Vladimir Nabokov
A Passage to India (1924), by E.M. Forster (READ)
Play It As It Lays (1970), by Joan Didion
Portnoy's Complaint (1969), by Philip Roth
Possession (1990), by A.S. Byatt
The Power and the Glory (1939), by Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), by Muriel Spark
Rabbit, Run (1960), by John Updike
Ragtime (1975), by E.L. Doctorow
The Recognitions (1955), by William Gaddis
Red Harvest (1929), by Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road (1961), by Richard Yates
The Sheltering Sky (1949), by Paul Bowles
Slaughterhouse Five (1969), by Kurt Vonnegut (READ)
Snow Crash (1992), by Neal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), by John Barth
The Sound and the Fury (1929), by William Faulkner (READ)
The Sportswriter (1986), by Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1964), by John le Carre
The Sun Also Rises (1926), by Ernest Hemingway (READ)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), by Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart (1959), by Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), by Harper Lee (READ)
To the Lighthouse (1927), by Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer (1934), by Henry Miller
Ubik (1969), by Philip K. Dick
Under the Net (1954), by Iris Murdoch
Under the Volcano (1947), by Malcolm Lowry
Watchmen (1986), by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise (1985), by Don DeLillo
White Teeth (2000), by Zadie Smith
Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), by Jean Rhys
I've read 15 out of the 100, which is pretty pathetic even by my standards.

Book Shopping | Small Find

Came across a new bookstore last weekend [which I fell in love with] and picked up two titles:

In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore
A book by Carl Honoré containing his analysis of the Cult of Speed, which he claims is becoming the societal standard all over the world. He discusses and gives praise to the Slow Movement and the various groups around the world representative of this movement. [Wikipedia]

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Link to Summary

• I don't like to read the summaries of the classics before I read them, because I'm just plain odd.
• Based on the size of David Copperfield, I have a feeling that I'll read 'In Praise of Slow' first.  It seems like a vacation book, so I'll probably get through it in either August or November.

Rental History of Classic (and other) Novels in Movie Form

I've often debated how many of the novels I have read, I have watched the film of and how I felt about the picture afterwards.  I'm going to compile a list of books I've read with their corresponding movie (and rating) over the last 4 years or so.

Book: "The Trial" by Franz Kafka.
Movie: "The Trial"
Date Produced: 1963
Stars: 3
Watched: May 2009

Book: "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens
Movie: "A Christmas Carol"
Date Produced: 1951 - the only real version outside of the Donald Duck version
Stars: 4
Watched: December 2008

Book: "The Kite Runner" by Khalid Hosseini
Movie: "The Kite Runner"
Date Produced: 2007
Stars: 3
Watched: May 2008

Book: "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Movie: "The Great Gatsby"
Date Produced: 1974
Stars: 3
Watched: November 2006

Book: "Doctor Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak
Movie: "Doctor Zhivago"
Date Produced: 1965
Stars: 5
Watched: November 2006

Book: "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway
Movie: "A Farewell to Arms"
Date Produced: 1957
Stars: 1
Watched: N/A

Book: "The Fellowship of the Ring", "The Two Towers", "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Movies: "The Fellowship of the Ring", "The Two Towers", "The Return of the King"
Dates Produced: 2001, 2002, 2003
Stars: 3ish
Watched: N/A

Book: "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
Movie: "I, Robot"
Date Produced: 2004
Stars: 1
Watched: N/A

I have a feeling that this list is grossly understated, but there have been plenty of books I've read without watching the films and vice versa.  What truly sticks out, is that "Doctor Zhivago" was the best book adaptation that I have ever read/watched and that "A Farewell to Arms" was the worst adaptation - I remember the acting being so bad (and overdone) I could barely finish it.  They managed to keep the story fairly true to the book, and lost absolutely everything about Hemingway that made him a great writer.

The Curse of Lono | Hunter S. Thompson

Most people either really enjoy Hunter S. Thompson or think everything that he stands for is a complete showmanship scam.  Those that enjoyed his work "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" will enjoy yet another great work of "Gonzo Journalism".  While "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was labeled as a work of fiction, this novel seems to be classified by some (at least on Wikipedia) as non-fiction.  It's another book where the lines between reality and fiction are blurred... typical of Gonzo style.

The book is about Hunter S. Thompson being commissioned to follow the 1980 Honolulu Marathon for a magazine called "Running."  He meets his friend Ralph Steadman there, who flies to Hawaii with his family [Note: Steadman is the famous English artist that is responsible for most of the illustrations in Thompson's work, including the illustrated copy of "The Curse of Lono"].  Before he arrives in Hawaii, he meets an obscure character on the plane and we're introduced to him right away with yet another great opening line to a novel by Thompson:

"We were about forty minutes out of San Francisco when the crew finally decided to take action on the problem in Lavatory 1B."

If that doesn't get you interested, then nothing will.  It's indicative of the type of beginning that we saw in Fear and Loathing:

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like 'I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .' And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming, 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'"

But I digress.  After the marathon is 'covered', the story evolves (or devolves depending on your point of view) into a curious story about Thompson's time in Hawaii.  Throughout the work, there are snippets about Captain James Cook who was said to be the reincarnation of a Polynesian God named Lono.  As the story of Thompson plays out, snippets from a historical text are inserted throughout the story.  You're not quite sure why until the ending, when Thompson states that he is the next reincarnation of the God Lono. 

As expected, the work is full of Thompson humour and drug induced visions.  It also contains letters from Thompson to Steadman (in Gonzo style - we're not sure if these are true or not) which help the story along.  All in all, this work is a must have for Thompson enthusiasts.  It's a bit hard to find [since it's out of print], especially the beautifully illustrated Taschen 2005 over sized version, but if you can get your hands on one you should do so.  I was offered $200 for mine and could not part with it after reading it, because the novel and illustrations were such a work of art.

The Folio Society has put out a nice version of Cook's travels, and I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one after reading this work.  His story is interesting in itself, and the historical account of his death from the hands of natives was fascinating, though gruesome.

Book Shopping | Another good weekend

It being the long weekend, spent partially at home and partially up north, I went to a variety of bookstores... probably 8 in total.  I was able to curb my purchasing in all but one, where I picked up 5 books.  It's kind of an eclectic mix.

A Little Princess by Frances Burnett
Life of Herod by Joesephus (non-fiction)
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck - I already own a copy but couldn't help myself
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

My bookshelves can't hold anymore... so I'm either going to have to get rid of some duplicates, stop buying (yeah, right) or buy a new house.  ;)

Book Beginnings | Friday July 30th

I'm a few days late on the Friday Book Beginnings post.  I'm currently reading "The Curse of Lono" by Hunter S. Thompson and here's the wonderful opening line:

"We were about forty minutes out of San Francisco when the crew finally decided to take action on the problem in Lavatory 1B."

I'm sure there are a lot of thoughts going through your head on this one, but so far I have not heard the details of what happened.  Let's just leave it at this... the title of the chapter is "Blue Arm."