His Dark Materials

Pullman's novels, according to his fans, are better than J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. These people must be crossovers from the Flat Earth Society. Someone, please pass them the Kool-Aid. Pullman's anti-God trilogy doesn't even come close to LOTR. It is less enjoyable than the Harry Potter books and less literarily rich than Le Guin's Earthsea books, and neither of those can touch Tolkien's books for their majesty, profundity, and satisfaction. Not even close. Pullman's works are really not even fantasy; they are closer to science fiction. Even so, I won't ever go back to them, and the only reason I re-read Compass was because I was teaching it and using it for my fantasy lit conference paper. The first book (Compass) is the best, but it's downhill from there. By the time I hit Book 3, I just wanted it to be over. The characters were inconsistent between books, the plot holes more disturbing, the morality more overbearing and heavy-handed, the coincidences more ridiculous, and the conclusion completely over-the-top and unbelievable. Don't waste your time with anything beyond Book 1, if that.

Books: 2008

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Faust by Johann von Goethe
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin
Critical Literacy/Critical Teaching by Dozier, Johnston, and Rogers*
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Dubliners by James Joyce
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis
I am the Cheese by Robert Cormier
Smith of Wootton Major / Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien
Quantity and Quality in Social Research by Alan Bryman*

Next: Middlemarch by George Eliot
(But first some nonfiction)
*Nonfiction

Young Adult Fiction

I recently read three young adult novels: Wicked Lovely, Elijah of Buxton, and I am the Cheese. I wasn't going to add them to my list of books read since none is particularly challenging. However, they are all full-length novels, and the shortest among them -- Cheese -- was also the best and most "literary". They aren't books I would normally pick up and read, but since they were also on the list of summer reading books for school, I figured I should be familiar with them. Elijah (written by Christopher Paul Curtis) was like the Canadian version of a poor man's Huckleberry Finn, though the second half was much better than the first, unlike the Twain novel, which got worse as it went along. The book is written in dialect, but it's not as intense a dialect as Huck Finn. The story isn't nearly as interesting, either. It's a coming-of-age story of a free-born black boy (about eleven years old) who lives in Buxton, Canada, in the mid-nineteenth century (antebellum). It's a good story for students to have read before tackling Huck Finn because it lends itself to many comparisons, but I wouldn't assign it to them as it's rather slow-moving. The ending is a bit dissatisfying as well.

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr was better, but still only middling. Now this is going to sound sexist, but I'll comment anyway. It seems that the woman who wrote the book doesn't understand what women really like in guys, nor does she have any understanding of guys in general. The main male love interest is the type of guy who girls think they would like but in reality would quickly lose interest in: popular and self-assured but not arrogant, he really listens to her and supports her, he's strong but understanding, selfless, he likes to cook and keeps a clean house, he's independent but not afraid to commit to her, he doesn't push her romantically and is happy to go at her pace, he's jealous but not overly so, he wants to be friends and more-than-friends with her, he's self-sacrificing, and he isn't at all bothered when she doesn't want to sleep with him. In short, he's a metrosexual artificially-constructed pseudo-rebel and totally unbelievable, although I could certainly picture pubescent girls swooning over him. The author just can't write males. In fact, the main male rival for the protagonist's affections is almost immediately won over by Keenan's charm. The ending of the novel was stupid and the author refused to make any choices. None of the characters suffered significant and permanent loss, nor did they seem to change significantly. I would not have been surprised to find out that the book was actually written by a thirteen-year-old girl. The book did have some interesting scenes, but overall it was so slow-moving that I suspect the author dragged things out from a lack of ideas. I can see the appeal to young (female) readers, but I don't think many young males would like it.

I am the Cheese by Robert Cormier was excellent. Typical Cormier, which is to say unflinching, compelling, interesting story, dramatically tense. It's a difficult book to read, since the reader is forced to put a lot of pieces together, though Cormier gives a lot of help at the end of the book. The description is cliche at times and minimal. It moves forward steadily (the whole book is only 214 pages) and was certainly the best-paced novel of the three. Talk about making tough choices. Cormier's loyalty is to the story, not the characters (unlike Marr), and his ending supports that philosophy. I enjoyed The Chocolate War, though the ending was tough to swallow, and this novel did not disappoint either. This would have been a good novel to teach in school, since it was challenging and had many opportunities for discussion and making predictions. The novel unfolded like an origami, eventually bringing the reader full-circle.

All-in-all, I'm glad I read these. As an English teacher, it's important to connect with adolescent fiction, and it's satisfying to be able to chug three novels in a week, as opposed to my ten-day excursion on the Pequod, or the 100 hours of solitude I was forced to spend with Marquez's masterpiece.

Moby-Dick

This book would probably make my Top Five list, never mind my Top Ten. I can see why it's so well-considered among scholars. Brilliant descriptions, mesmerizing plot, captivating characters, scintillating prose, and memorable scenes. Loved it, loved it, loved it! I'll definitely read this one again, probably next summer.

I had heard about the "hundreds" of pages of descriptions about whales and whaling, and I was ambivalent about them. I tend to enjoy that sort of detail, but many people are turned off by those sections. I was about halfway through the book, still looking for those endless chapters of boredom, when I realized that I had been reading them all along. I had been enjoying them so much that I didn't realize I was "supposed" to be bored by them. (Except the one entitled "Cetology". I was pretty bored by that one.) I found the technical discussions fascinating and useful. I would have appreciated some additional ones about boats, however. (I don't know a top-gallant sail from a forecastle.) The incredible quantity of references, mostly Biblical, was most impressive. I'm fairly literate, but I didn't recognize half of Melville's allusions, except that they came from the Bible and classical literature, history, and mythology.

The characters were great: Ishmael, Queequeg, Starbuck, Stubb, Flask, and of course, Ahab. I was disappointed by Ahab, though. Found him a bit too one-dimensional (I guess he was supposed to be). Still, I would have liked more background on him. Melville seemed more intent on giving information about whaling and whales than about providing character background. I found this refreshing (if I can say that a 150-year-old book is "refreshing") because of the modern novelist's habit of providing too much character background (c.f. Stephen King), a tendency I find over-indulgent. Queequeg was easily my favorite character. From his bravery at saving Tashtego, to his ever-present optimism and his choice to not die when he was sick (talk about opposing the theme of Fate!), I enjoyed reading about him the most.

I thought the battles with Moby Dick were too fast and some of the descriptions difficult to follow, but there were some great scenes: Moby Dick rising quickly from the depths to bite Ahab's boat in half, surfacing beneath Ahab's boat, the Parsee lashed to Moby Dick's back, and the exciting (okay, symbolically-heavy handed) ending. (I'll probably re-read the final three chapters after the novel has "settled". I was a bit tired from having read the final hundred pages in one morning; I'd like to enjoy the chases again when I'm fresh.) Speaking of which, when I first saw "Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan" I was particularly impressed by Khan's curse to Kirk: "From hell's heart, I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee." I remember thinking, "That sounds like an allusion." As I was reading "Moby Dick," I thought, "This is probably the book from which Khan's quote was taken. It would be perfect." I figured it would occur -- if it did at all -- when Ahab encountered Moby Dick, so I kept an eye out for it. But I didn't see it, didn't see it, didn't see it, and ultimately I was almost disappointed. Almost. Best line of the book.

I feel like I should talk about themes, but there simply isn't room here. Nor do I have the time.

Final comments: A profound book. Ahab is appropriately larger than life, although I found Wolf Larsen to be more intimidating as a captain. The prose is muscular but dense at times. The novel resonates like nobody's business. I'm glad I waited as long as I did to read it; I needed all the seasoning I could get to enjoy it. I hope I'll be able to teach the novel some day.

Note:  It is now five years later, and I have had the chance to use Moby-Dick in my Advanced Placement Language and Composition class three times.  The first time did not go over that well, as most of the students (to my later disappointment) did not read the book.  The next two groups mostly did (I think).  The final group (2012-13) was academically better prepared for the task and more intellectually curious, so I'm pretty confident they read it.  Many of the students even said they enjoyed it.  I use the book to help the students grapple with archaic prose, and the novel is well-suited to do that.  I also want to share with them my love of the novel.  I recognize that the book is massive, so I edited the book down for them, cutting out about 1/3 of the novel.  I hope some of them go back and read the whole thing, and I know that several this past year did accomplish that task.  I am proud of those who completed it as well as those who even attempted it.
-MF

The Sun Also Rises

This is my third Hemingway, though I read The Old Man and the Sea quite a long time ago. I enjoyed this one, though not as much as A Farewell to Arms. Seemed less polished overall--the prose, I mean. I liked the characters: they seemed realistic and compelling. The fiesta section of Part 2 was great, and I found myself eagerly anticipating the descriptions of the bull-fights. Parts dragged, but it was a quick read and I liked it. Not a favorite, though. I figure if I read one more--For Whom the Bell Tolls--I can allow myself an informed opinion of him as a writer.