Sadie Hawkins Sunday Review #24: Dune

Dune
Dune, Book 1

Author: Frank Herbert
Pages: 794
Publisher: Ace
Read: July 14-23, 2013
Source: Library
Recommended by: Rollie of Blotted Pages

Description from Goodreads:
Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family--and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what it undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.

First Sentence: "In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul."

Review:
Woo, I conquered the Dunes, crossed the sands without being eaten by a worm, and inhaled the aromatic spices of Arrakis. This is a victory, even if Dune turned out not to be my sort of science fiction. I know, I know, it's a classic and I'm meant to love it, and I'm an utter disappointment to my parents, who dearly love the early Dune books. Oh well, such is life, no? I can see why Dune is so popular, but, largely, it's just not the sort of book I can love, though I'm very glad to have read it, so thank you to Robbie for getting me to do so!

Time and again, I've said that I am a character reader, and I'm sure I'll set many more times. Dune has many charms, but they are not of characterization. Most of the cast is just so focused on one thing at all times, on ruling or backstabbing or mothering or being a wife or whatever. They're largely not people of interests outside of what they need to survive. Everything is about the world building and the political landscape. This isn't a book of banter and bonding. If world building delights you even without strong characterization, by all means, come explore these sand dunes.

At times, though, Dune did flirt with being a book I could like overall. The story of Paul Atreides doing a sort of Monte Cristo and rising up for vengeance with a whole bunch of power at his back is pretty awesome. The powers exhibited by Paul and the Bene Gesserit, women trained to have crazy fighting skills and more, are fascinating. I'm also curious about Arrakis and how this planet exists. How can a planet with so little water sustain life (by drinking their bodily fluids and those of others for one thing O_O)? What precisely is the spice and how does it relate to the worms?

These elements that I liked, though, were bogged down in the political back and forth, the perspective hopping between those of the Atreides group and the antagonists. I just had no fucks to give about what the Harkonnens or the Emperor were doing. Paul so obviously has all the power in the world and has been fulfilling all of these prophecies to be the Kwisatz Haderach, whatever that really means, so it's not like he's going to be defeated. It's sort of like how Harry Potter obviously wasn't going to die in Rowling's series. It's hard to care about Paul when I know he won't be killed.

Oh, though I'm not generally a big fan of characters being that powerful and perfect, I do like the way Herbert showed the difficulties of being Paul. He clearly struggles with the apartness of being so much more than everyone around him. The fact that he receives reverence rather than friendship further alienates him from the rest of humanity. This in turn makes it more likely that he will turn corrupt or unfeeling, as was oft hinted.

What really held me back in Dune more than anything else was the writing. It's not a style I found pleasing. Herbert uses a close third person, which jumps about from character to character. On top of that, character's thoughts are in italics. For the most part, that's alright, but sometimes there were long paragraphs of fragmented thoughts separated by ellipses. Between each chapter, unmarked stretches of time pass, leaving me constantly disoriented when I pick the book back up. Little details are dealt with endlessly but the climax skips most of the fighting for more talking. So many people die in Dune, and yet there's so little actual action.

Also worthy of note is that the treatment of women in the novel made me uncomfortable, as well as the treatment of the Fremen. Women can obviously be quite strong, stronger than the men, as the Bene Gesserit show. However, that's not a feminist move if these powerful women are essentially slaved, sold out as concubines to wealthy men. Plus, there's a weird message that being a concubine is actually better than a wife that I find really puzzling.

The Fremen are the desert people of Arrakis, who know much better how to survive there, and rule the planet no matter what Duke claims to be the leader. They're way better fighters than anyone else, and they do get respect for that. Still, I find the fact that they need Paul, from outside their culture, to come in and rule them disgusting. It's like this is pro-colonization, and I am not a fan.

That all came out quite ranty, but I really don't think Dune is a terrible book. It's not a great book for me, since I'm not all that interested in political intrigue or world building for its own sake. Dune's also very much a product of it's time. Glad to have read it so I know what the fuss is about, but I shan't be continuing on, which is probably for the best since I heard the series goes bad places.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote:

"There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man—with human flesh."

---

Up Next:

The next Sadie Hawkins Sunday book will be Covet by Tracey Garvis Graves, which my dear friend Blythe of Finding Bliss in Books told me to read. ARCs I have put in the list jump to the top, because it would be silly to review them post-publication just because I was waiting for random.org, no? Check back next week to see what I think of Covet!

Want to tell me what to read? Fill out the following form with a suggestion! For more details, check this post.

Audiobook Review: Dracula

Dracula

Author: Bram Stoker
Narrators: Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, Katherine Kellgren, Susan Duerden, John Lee, Graeme Malcolm, Steven Crossley, Simon Prebble, James Adams, Nicola Barber, Victor Villar-Hauser, Marc Vietor
Duration: 15 hrs, 28 mins
Publisher: Audible
Source: Own

Description from Goodreads:
Because of the widespread awareness of the story of the evil Transylvanian count and the success of numerous film adaptations that have been created over the years, the modern audience hasn't had a chance to truly appreciate the unknowing dread that readers would have felt when reading Bram Stoker's original 1897 manuscript. Most modern productions employ campiness or sound effects to try to bring back that gothic tension, but we've tried something different. By returning to Stoker's original storytelling structure - a series of letters and journal entries voiced by Jonathan Harker, Dr. Van Helsing, and other characters - with an all-star cast of narrators, we've sought to recapture its originally intended horror and power.

This production of Dracula is presented by what is possibly the best assemblage of narrating talent ever for one audiobook: Emmy Award nominees Alan Cumming and Tim Curry plus an all-star cast of Audie award-winners Simon Vance (The Millenium Trilogy), Katherine Kellgren (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), Susan Duerden (The Tiger's Wife), John Lee (Supergods) and customer favorites Graeme Malcolm (Skippy Dies), Steven Crossley (The Oxford Time Travel series), Simon Prebble (The Baroque Cycle), James Adams (Letters to a Young Contrarian), Nicola Barber (The Rose Garden), Victor Villar-Hauser (Fun Inc.), and Marc Vietor (1Q84). These stellar narrators have been cast as follows:

Dr. Seward: Alan Cumming
Jonathan Harker: Simon Vance
Mina Murray/Harker: Katy Kellgren
Lucy Westenra: Susan Duerden
Van Helsing: Tim Curry
Graeme Malcolm: Dailygraph correspondent
Steven Crossley: Zookeeper's account and reporter
Simon Prebble: Varna
James Adams: Patrick Hennessey
Nicola Barber: Sister Agatha
Victor Villar-Hauser: Arthur Holmwood
Marc Vietor: Quincey Morris
John Lee: Introductory paragraph, various letters

Review:

Were it not for audiobooks, I don't think I'd have read any classics in the last two years. This is a great way to slowly slog through the ones you've been meaning to read just because, but don't think you'll like much. Dracula has been on my to-read list since middle school, but only because it's a thing I felt I should read, not because I was especially interested. Thank you, audiobook, for making it so that I did not need to DNF!

For real, if I had been reading this in print format, I really do not think we would have been friends. The story goes by so slowly, the characters are flat, and there is very little action for a horror novel. Add to this the fact that pretty much ALL of pop culture is one big giant spoiler for the plot, and the book is insanely boring at most points.

Even worse, pop culture took all the good ideas out of Dracula and so, basically, what you're left to be surprised by is all of the things pop culture changed so that the book could actually be interesting. Take, for example, Van Helsing and Dracula's battle. I went in expecting this:

If that's what you're hoping for, let me just tell you that you're WRONG. In fact, Van Helsing is an old, fat doctor with an absurd accent. Dracula is a tall, old man with a long white mustache. Umm, yuck, really? Sadly, 'tis true. The action in the book is more of the mental battle variety than anything else. They do a lot more talking than fighting. 

Mental standoffs can be pretty cool though, characters trying to outmaneuver one another. I mean, that's what made the first half of Death Note so freaking cool. Unfortunately, these characters are dumb. Certainly, knowing what's happening going into the book, but even given that they're working with no knowledge, their reasoning abilities are limited.

What really got to me was that, near the end, they've figured out what happened to Lucy Westenra, watched her become a vampire, and killed her. Now they're searching for Dracula to kill him too. They decide that they need to do this without the cleverest of the bunch, Mina Harker, because ladies cannot handle this sort of thing, duh. They leave her alone and come back to find her weak, pale and tired, and it takes them freaking ages to think maybe Dracula has something to do with this, since these symptoms are remarkably similar to Lucy's. Basically, everyone's pathetic.

Speaking of Mina, she is by far the most interesting and clever character, but, because of the time period, she gets very little respect. I mean, yeah, the guys appreciate what a great typist she is and admire her intellect, but, ultimately, she's more of a curiosity than a compatriot. They leave her out of things because she's a woman, and view her most important role to be that of a shoulder to cry on, of feminine comfort, despite the fact that she's the one who ultimately figures everything out. I know it's a different time, but it still pisses me right the fuck off. 

Oh, also supremely annoying? The infinite references to God. Seriously, every couple of minutes someone would intone "it's in God's hands." At first it didn't bother me, because that's the kind of stupid shit people would say, and still do say, in crises. However, after the first fifty times, I pretty much wanted to start ripping people's heads off every time it happened. I GOT it already: you're all good Christians. Shut the fuck up, okay?

The only thing that made this book bearable for me was the fact that Audible did a wonderful job putting together the audio. They brought in a stellar cast, and really fit the voices to the characters. My favorite voice actors were Alan Cumming and Katherine Kellgren. Tim Curry does a good job, but he's doing that stupid Van Helsing accent, so I couldn't love his performance as much.

Even with the marvelous audio work, this still only came out to a meh for me. I highly recommend the audio version, whether you think you'll like the book or not.

Rating: 2.5/5

Review: James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach

Author: Roald Dahl
Illustrator: Quentin Blake
Pages: 160
Publisher: Puffin
Source: Own

Description from Goodreads:
It's the 50th anniversary of James and the Giant Peach! Come celebrate and join James Trotter and his friends - Grasshopper, Earthworm, Miss Spider - on an adventure inside a giant magical peach.

First Sentence: "Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had a happy life."

Review:
Oh, childhood, Roald Dahl takes me right back. I will always love Roald Dahl's work, because of how much these books meant to me as a kid, not that they're not fun now, of course, but the experience really is not quite the same. Unlike with a lot of my childhood reads, dimmed to hazy memories, I have a strong recollection of my first time reading James and the Giant Peach. Much as I loved Roald Dahl (personal favorites being the BFG, The Witches, Boy, and Matilda), I dreaded reading this book, popular as it was. In my younger years, completely different from now, I was a picky reader, wandering shelves, unsure what to read. Thus when an author tickled my fancy, I embarked on all of their books that I could get my hands on. As such, eventually the time came when I had to cave and read James and the Giant Peach.

"But Christina," you might ask, "why did you not want to read this children's classic, much beloved by many you knew and by one of your favorite authors?" Well, my dear friends, the answer is simple. All my life, I have had a phobia of just about every kind of bug. My childhood self read that synopsis and looked at that cover and thought whatever the childhood equivalent of OH HELL TO THE NO was, which, I suppose, would be something in the vein of YOU CAN'T MAKE ME. Though precisely who would be trying to force me I have no idea, as my parents let me choose my own reading material.

To try to keep what has already morphed into a rather long story from becoming a tome of giant peach proportions, I caved and read it, and, as ever, Roald Dahl charmed me utterly, perhaps more than usual because he won me over in spite of my stubborn, childish desire NOT to like the book. Ever since then, I've remembered James and the Giant Peach as a favorite. Rereading a book that meant so much to you as a tiny tot is always a treacherous prospect, because, sometimes, you discover that the book that so impacted you has all of the wit and charm of Mr. Collins.

Of course, with Roald Dahl, you're pretty safe. In my case, I found that I could not enjoy this one nearly so much as an adult, but that I could still bask in the glow of Roald Dahl's boundless imagination. Seriously, that man was a freaking international treasure. How in the world did he come up with that? How did that brainstorming session go? "Mmm, this peach is delicious. Rather large. I wish I could live in a peach with my insect and arachnid friends..." The whole story runs with the absurd, making an art of it. This book would be a perfect transition to chapter books for kids who best love Dr. Seuss' wordplay and silliness.

As an adult, I just found myself unable to lose myself in the magic of the tale the way I did as a child. I kept trying to impose logic where there was never meant to be any. Admittedly, some of the absurdities, like James' parents having been eaten by an escaped rhinoceros from the zoo, are quite humorous. Others, such as how the giant peach came into existence or the fact that sea gulls carried that peach across the Atlantic Ocean without stopping, my grown up brain could not just accept.

The fact that Dahl wrote in an earlier time is very apparent in the peach's origin. James is just sitting around outside moping, when this weird man approaches him and offers him a bunch of squirmy little bright green things. He tells James to eat them so that something magical can happen to him. In the modern world, if a stranger gives you something weird like that, you better get to running and hollering your fool head off. Thankfully, James is a klutz and drops all of the green things, thus saving us from finding out what would have happened to him.

Making the main characters James and a bunch of bugs now capable of rational thought was a clever way of allowing the child to shine. James, while exceedingly young, gets to be the problem solver, because, little life experience as he possesses, he knows more about the world than the insects do, aside from some biology lessons.

Something that I entirely did not recall about this book was how much poetry Dahl wove into the story. Every few chapters, someone sings a song or uses a poem to express themselves. The songs made sense to me, but exposition as poetry did not, though I'm sure as a kid it's the best. At the end, James addresses all of the mucky mucks in America, all freaking out because the peach just landed King Kong style on the top of the Empire State Building, and calms them by introducing his friends in a poem. Sadly, this may be more efficient and logical than how governments actually function. Children will delight in these, I have no doubt, but I'm very picky about poetry.

In all, James and the Giant Peach certainly did not impress me as much now, and I suspect that, for me at least, it's not his best. Still, he has imagination and humor like no other, and I imagine I will revisit this one again someday.

Rating: 3.5/5

Favorite Quote: "The peach rolled on. And behind it, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker lay ironed out upon the grass as flat and thin and lifeless as a couple of paper dolls cut out of a picture book."

Review: The Tower Treasure

The Tower Treasure
The Hardy Boys, Book 1

Author: Franklin W. Dixon
Pages: 180
Publisher: Grosset and Dunlap
Source: Read at friend's house

Description from Goodreads:
A dying criminal confesses that his loot has been secreted "in the tower." Both towers of the looted mansion are searched in vain. It remains for the Hardy boys to make an astonishing discovery that clears up the mystery.

First Sentence: "Frank and Joe Hardy clutched the grips of their motorcycles and stared in horror at the oncoming car."

Review:
Last night, my friend and I ended up crashing at another friend's house. We wanted to drink, so we stayed there and watched a movie and had tasty margaritas made for us in an absurdly tiny blender. Awesome, right? Well, the downside comes when my allergies wake me up at 9 in the morning. I neglected to bring along a book, not planning to be there overnight. At least I have my iPod Touch with some Kindle books loaded on it, I thought. Nope, I forgot it at home. Everyone else is sleeping and I don't have a book! Obviously, I did what anyone would do, raided their library for something I could read during the morning. That's how I came to read The Tower Treasure.

To my knowledge, I never read The Hardy Boys when I was younger, though I think I did read a few volumes of Nancy Drew. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I thought it was about two young brothers who solved crimes, but I think I mixed it up with Encyclopedia Brown, which I did read way back when. In fact, the Hardy boys are 17 (Joe) and 18 (Frank). I was rather surprised they were so old since these books are for kids.

The scene opens on a country road with our young heroes riding on their motorcycles. They spot a car coming up fast and swerving all over the road. Fearful for their lives, the boys climb off the motorcycles and climb an embankment, leaving their motorcycles to be completely squashed. Lucky for their transportation, the car turns off the road before it gets there. They get back on their motorcycles and ride away, but the car comes back, having turned down a dead-end road and nearly runs them down.

The boys run their errand, dropping off a package for their detective father (the best in the world) who they totally hero-worship, as good children do. On the way home, they pass the car they saw, now crashed on the side of the road. The driver is nowhere to be seen. Rather than contacting the authorities, Frank and Joe decide to go hang out with their friend Chet.

At Chet's, the boys find more mysterious doings: Chet's car has been stolen! LE GASP! Someone took off in his precious yellow jalopy! Seriously, these kids are so spoiled. I'm pretty sure it was fairly rare for people to have cars in 1927 when this was first published, but they pretty much all have transportation and not just borrowed from dear old dad. The boys set out, with Chuck in tow, to chase after the car thief, convinced that their motorcycles are much faster, even though they couldn't outrun that car earlier. Plot hole, you say?

I don't want to spoil everything for you, because I'm sure you'll want to enjoy the unspoiled mastery of the detective work that unspools within The Tower Treasure. Frank and Joe use such unparalleled techniques as: visiting every single shop in town that might have seen a man in a wig, searching every inch of town for Chet's car with their popular buddies, and asking daddy. These boys clearly have a promising future.

The writing is quite stilted to a modern reader, and I'm not convinced it was even great for the time. One of the boys says "Have you any idea," which seemed like very odd phrasing for a hip teen. Callie, Frank's girl, on finding out that Chet's car has been stolen, responds "that's a shame." What a caring girl. Also strange is that, when offered money to help a costume store owner with his inventory, Frank and Joe say they want to work for free because it sounds fun.

Of course, the book also has plenty of sexism. The boys and men in this novel are all working hard to bring down the criminal. The women spend the entirety of the book making food to take to the people affected by the bad guy's crime spree. No joke. Frank and Joe's girlfriends keep asking them what's going on and the boys promise to fill them in later, but never do, because obviously ladies have more important things to do, like make cake. To be fair, the boys do help cook in one scene, but they leave to do some investigating (the call is totally coming from inside the house) and the girls finish the cooking alone.

The mystery plot line itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and is rather unsatisfying. The blurb on Goodreads even totally spoils it, so that's fun. As stupid as most of the actions taken by the Hardy boys to figure out the mystery are, this isn't the sort of mystery the reader can solve, since the guilty party has exactly no screen time in the book. This is lazy plotting. Also, despite the father's purported insane skill at being a detective, his sons wrap up the case, which I assume is only because he wanted them to earn the thousand dollar reward and save him some money on their college tuition.

All in all, The Tower Treasure was humorous and gave me something to do with my morning, but I wouldn't say that it was a good book, nor that I will be hunting down the rest of the series.

Rating: 2.5/5

Favorite Quote: "I've heard dad say there is no such thing as a clever crook. If he was really clever, he wouldn't be a crook at all."

Money (That's What I Want) - The Beatles

Brewster's Millions

Author: George Barr McCutcheon
Narrator: Bronson Pinchot
Duration: 5 hrs, 41 mins
Publisher: Blackstone Audio

Story:
I had no idea this was a book! My knowledge of it was limited entirely to the movie starring Richard Pryor. For those of you who have seen the movie, the basic plot is pretty much the same, however, pretty much everything else is pretty different. This probably comes as little surprise, if you know that the novel was published in 1902.

Brewster receives an inheritance of 1 million dollars and is, unsurprisingly, incredibly excited. Then, soon after, he learns that he is eligible for a second, much larger, inheritance, but only if, within one year, he can spend the prior inheritance. If he fails, he will not get the money, and will have to survive on what remains of the million. Of course, he tries to win big.

As you may have guessed based on the synopsis, or the film, this a is a light-hearted humorous book. I found most of it to be pretty funny, and really enjoyed the story. Of course, the funniest part is how difficult it was for Brewster to get rid of one million dollars. He should learn from today's celebrities, many of whom have managed to dispose of hundreds of millions. Rich people make me mad sometimes.

Performance:
I am now entirely certain that Pinchot is a very talented narrator. I've listened to three audiobooks that he's done, and in every single one he has sounded like a different person. Although I hated the first one I listened to, I've really enjoyed the others. Here, especially, he did a great job of fitting his voice and pacing to that of the character. His narration is blithe and conveys the humor of the situation.

This is quite an excellent audiobook, and just the right length for a decent road trip!

Rating: 4/5

"The best things in life are free
But you can keep 'em for the birds and bees"

To Die For - Hans Zimmer

Hamlet

Author: William Shakespeare
Performers: Oregon Shakespeare Festival Cast
Duration: 2 hrs, 51 mins
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Story:
Everyone knows Hamlet. Okay, maybe not everyone, but most people do. Now, if you were to ask me if I liked Hamlet, my short answer would probably be 'no.' Really, though, it's not fair for me to encapsulate my feelings on Hamlet into such a simple answer. If Hamlet and I were in a relationship on facebook (assuming he it could ever decide whether to be in one...punned!), it would most definitely be complicated.

Here's the thing: Hamlet is a great play. There's no denying it. When I think about the play objectively, there's a lot of amazing stuff in there. Shakespeare's wit is fantastic; gotta love all of those dirty jokes he makes in here. And, of course, the language is completely gorgeous.

The characters I have never been particularly tied to, which is one reason Hamlet does not rank among my favorite plays; the tragedies often lack the sassy heroines you can find in the comedies. Hamlet's indecisiveness frustrates me endlessly. Whine, whine, whine, think about doing something, wimp out, wine more. Cry moar, anon. Yoda judges you. Hamlet's uncle father and his aunt mother are not especially likable, even if you don't think they're guilty of what Hamlet's ghosty father accused them of (namely, turning him into a ghost). Ophelia isn't the brightest; plus, her end does not for admiration make. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are probably my favorites, and that's only because of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard.

Truly though, the reason that I don't really like Hamlet is how prevalent it is. I just get so tired of always hearing this same play over and over. I mean, who didn't have to read this in high school, and again in college?

Performance:
This audiobook is the recording of a stage version of the play, performed by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival cast. They do a good job, and I imagine it was quite a fun performance that they did. It sounds like they did some interesting things with the characters, such as changing gender in some cases and some modernizing (thus the leather jacket Hamlet's wearing).

Unfortunately, listening to a play and watching it just aren't the same. Had I not already been very familiar with Hamlet, I have little doubt that I would at time have been confused by some of the quick scene changes or by which voice belonged to which character. Some of the actors did have rather similar sounding voices.

Between scenes, there is creepy dramatic music, which definitely set a mood, but I don't think I liked. Nor did I care for the fact that the players rapped everything. That was kind of weird. At least Ophelia didn't rap her crazyface songs. Speaking of Ophelia, she was my favorite part of the performance. Her voice and manner definitely reminded me of River Tam (Summer Glau's character in Firefly, who has a couple of screws loose). What an awesome way to portray Ophelia. Now I kind of want to try to write some fan fiction with the characters from Firefly performing Hamlet. Maybe not.

Rating: 2.5/5

I Live for You - George Harrison

A Tale of Two Cities

Author: Charles Dickens
Narrator: Simon Prebble
Duration: 14 hrs, 43 mins
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks

Story:
Okay, so, to be entirely affair, I confess that, for reasons I will go into greater detail about later, I did not manage to pay too much attention to this audiobook. The result of which is that I have only a vague idea of what happened. I mean, I think I have the overarching plot pretty firm in my mind, but if there were subtle beauties here, they were lost to me.

From what I did gather, A Tale of Two Cities is never going to be a favorite Dickens novel for me. Really, it was going to be either his best, most original work or his least good, failed attempt at novelty. His bread and butter was writing about those suffering in England, the poverty, the terrible schools, the diseases, the hypocrisy. Here, he is tackling the French Revolution, which is something rather different.

My biggest problem, as with so many of the books I do not like, is that I did not connect with any of the characters. The narrative does not really focus on anyone in particular. The omniscient narrator is definitely high above everyone looking down, and, to me, no one looks all that interesting. The bad guys, the good guys...all of them struck me as really blah.

Sydney Carton is the one I think I'm supposed to sympathize or empathize with. I mean, what could be more romantic than giving up your life so that the woman you love can be happy. Umm, how about you both loving each other and getting to be together? Is that just me? I have never thought tragic, doomed, unrequited, etc. romances were romantic. Romeo and Juliet does not thrill me either. And, really, the reason Sydney doesn't get the girl is that he's kind of an ass. Just sayin'. Also, I really don't get his noble sacrifice. In the real world, would he ever have been able to swap himself in for the guillotine? Because I doubt it.

From my imperfect trip through this novel, I would recommend going back and watching the Wishbone episode instead of reading it, but, again, I may be wrong.

Performance:
Now, you may be wondering how on earth I spent over 14 hours of my life listening to a novel and end up having very little idea of most of what happened within that book. Well, here's how. Simon Prebble has narrated a lot of things, which must mean a lot of people think he's a really great narrator. I do not however.

Prebble seems to have just the wrong voice for me. I don't know if I'm unique in this or not, but I literally cannot pay attention to his voice. Part of the joy of audiobooks is that you can read and do other things (laundry, your dishes, pet the cat, rake the lawn, grocery shopping, drive, etc.). I have done so with all of the ones I have listened to. With this one, though, I could not pay attention. Desperate, I tried reading along with the audiobook. Even then, it took every bit of brain power for me to focus on this man.

You may think I'm exaggerating, but I'm really not. Something about Prebble's voice made me tune out, and tuning back in was pretty much impossible. This was just the strangest and most unfortunate experience. There are narrators I've hated more, but I missed nothing. How is that possible?

Rating: 1/5

I dedicate today's song to Sydney Carton, who lived (and died) for his love. She seems to have been the one person who could make him act like a human being.

"All alone in this world am I
Not a care for this world have I
Only you keep my eyes open wide
Yes it's true
I live for you"

Ride of the Valkyries - Richard Wagner

Heart of Darkness

Author: Joseph Conrad
Narrator: Kenneth Branagh
Duration: 3 hrs, 51 mins
Publisher: Audible

Story:
Back in high school, senior year I believe, Heart of Darkness was one of the instrument so torture with which the teachers gave us great pain. I hated it. It's nothing that I'm interested in. The writing is pompous, but I don't find it beautiful. The narrative is racist, as it would be, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I'm going to be entirely truthful here and say that I don't get this story. In class, we sat and analyzed it. I even remember some of our analyses, but, still, the story has little meaning to me. I just can't relate to it in any way.

Performance:
If you have to read Heart of Darkness, I heartily recommend letting Kenneth Branagh read it to you. Actually, this is not the first time I have listened to this book. In high school, I read it out loud to myself, because that was the only way I could make the page-long sentences resolve into meaning for me at the time. While I am one of the best narrators ever, I probably preferred Branagh.

I mean, his voice is amazing! The editing of this audiobook was unfortunately not perfect. They didn't do a great job with the breathing, but that's pretty easy to tune out. More disconcerting were the constant changes in volume. I would realize that Branagh had gotten very quiet and would be thinking about turning up the volume when suddenly Bam! it would be all extra loud. Do not turn up the volume or it will be REALLY loud. You have been warned.

Rating: 2/5

Requiem for the Masses - The Association

Drum-Taps and Memoranda During the War

Author: Walt Whitman
Narrator: Bronson Pinchot
Duration: 6 hrs, 50 mins
Publisher: AudioGo

Story:
Okay, I know that neither of these are exactly possessed of a story, but I couldn't devise a better term and I like consistency. So. Memoranda During the War consists of Walt Whitman's experiences in the hospitals of the Union during the Civil War. Drum-Taps (which I humorously initially mistyped as Dum-Taps) is a collection of his war poems. Despite the title, Memoranda During the War comes first on the audiobook, which I think is stupid.

Memoranda During the War is interesting, assuming you are curious about the conditions of the Civil War. My one history course that spent a time focusing on that conflict would have benefited from these reminiscences perhaps more than from some of the books we did read (or were supposed to read). However, given its construction, which is just a series of short vignettes, it's a bit awkward to listen to. In audiobook form, it was hard to pick up on what exactly was going on. Instead, a sense of the blood, the guts, the pain and the terrible things that constantly happened just sort of washed over me. Maybe that's good, but I'm not sure. Certainly, I got an idea of the mood and the conditions, if not specific instances.

Drum-Taps I did not like at all. I suppose I should inform you that I am not a fan of poetry. Obviously, some poetry I do like, Shakespeare's sonnets (some of them) for example, but, mostly, I find prose to be much more beautiful. Anyway, I especially do not care for Whitman, or at least not when read by this guy. And, in audio format, poems are worse it seems. Poetry needs to be chewed on a little more, and listening to someone plow through poem after poem does not give time for appreciation. One definite failing of Whitman in this format is that he is one of those poets who almost always titles his poem whatever happens to be the first line, meaning that you have to hear that line twice. Many times. Ugh.

Even worse, there was a message saying this portion was over, but it was just a tease, because there were many more poems. fml.

Performance:
I have already intimated that I did not care for this narrator. My problem with Pinchot is primarily his accent. I don't care for the sound of his voice either, but that could just be me, so I won't harp on that. However, his accent is really distracting. He has a bit of a Jersey or New York sound to him (I don't know which). This means that 'er' tends to be come 'ah,' as in the case of mothah. I just can't take that seriously. Any time he dropped some serious dialect, I would start laughing, even though the content is sad.

Also, I looked at the two books herein contained just a little bit, trying to figure out what the format was, because, as I mentioned, it was a bit confusing to listen to without preparation. In the short time I spent doing so, I found two words he swapped for different ones (i. e. 'these' instead of 'those'). They didn't really make a change in content, but I do know you're not supposed to do that as a narrator.

Rating: 1/5

"Red was the color of his blood flowing thin
Pallid white was the color of his lifeless skin
Blue was the color of the morning sky
He saw looking up from the ground where he died"

Dancing in the Street - Martha Reeves & the Vandellas

for colored girls who have considered suicide - when the rainbow is enuf

Author: Ntozake Shange
Narrator: Thandie Newton
Duration: 1 hr, 59 mins
Publisher: Audible, Inc.

Story:
Written in 1975, for colored girls, is a choreopoem, which, apparently, means that it is a collection of poems performed as a play. Shange wrote this as a feminist, giving voice to the colored woman's experience. Obviously, I am not the primary audience for whom this play was intended. However, I still found parts of this extremely moving. Some aspects of experience run through womankind.

Usually, I skip introductions, prefaces, etc. This may be shameful, but I just want to get on to the story. However, in this case, I am so glad I didn't. For some reason, the most moving part of this story was the introduction, written for this later edition of the story by the author.

It tells the story of how the play came to be and of all of the different versions that have been put on that she has witnessed. She even mentioned, with pride, that a version was done by an all-white theatre in Kentucky, which focused on economic class rather than race. This displays and openness that I really appreciate.

Performance:
Thandie Newton is cast in the film version Tyler Perry is currently creating. This I learned from the super helpful introduction. Her narration really worked for me. Her voice is rather quiet and calm, yet can be full of emotion when needed.

Most of the story, she speaks in a steady, quiet tone. I think this conveyed a sense of the way that women, colored women, have submitted to terrible things in the past. Then, in the portions where she yelled or sang, a juxtaposition is created between the brightness of women standing up for themselves.

Despite her having done a great job, it's a bit weird listening to a play. Certain things just can't be the same, like when the actresses are supposed to be dancing to a song, like "Dancing in the Street."

Rating: 4/5

"All we need is music, sweet music,
There'll be music everywhere
There'll be swingin' swayin', and records playin,
Dancin' in the street"

Be Be Your Love - Rachael Yamagata

The Age of Innocence

Author: Edith Wharton
Narrator: Barbara Caruso
Duration: 11 hrs, 45 mins
Publisher: Recorded Books

Story:
I came into this story with a lot of expectations. Basically, I expected it to be about the amorous affair between Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska, his wife's cousin. While it was about their love, it turned out not to be about adultery. Oh yeah, spoiler, sorry. I figure most people already know what this is about because they've seen the movie.

Actually, the movie, which I have not actually seen, is what gave me the wrong idea. The most famous image from the film is of Archer (Daniel Day Lewis) passionately kissing Madame Olenska's (Michelle Pfeiffer's) neck. Thus the assumption that they were getting busy. Anyway, false. Turns out the book is more of a slow-moving look at how society puts constraints on people such that they cannot be with the person they love.

Madame Olenska married a Russian man and turned out to be fabulously unhappy despite her resulting wealth. She ran away to New York, where she fell for her cousin's fiancee. Ellen hoped to obtain a divorce, but her family threatened her with shunning (not the religious kind, just the snooty kind) were she to do so. As a result, Archer could not be with her, even were he willing to leave May Welland and put up with the resulting scandal.

The ending of the book was a bit odd and unsatisfying, the latter of which was likely intended. In the last chapter, you suddenly zoom ahead to the future to see what became of Archer. At first, this didn't make sense to me, but why became evident. Unfortunately, I thought the end was lame. Oh well.

All in all, I'm glad to have gotten through this book, as it was definitely on my list of things to read. I may even try reading the physical book at some point, since I already owned a copy before I was given the audiobook. At any rate, I would rate this far better than the only other Frome novel I have read, Ethan Frome. This may be her most optimistic famous novel, as I believe The House of Mirth is anything but mirthful.

Performance:
Barbara Caruso did a pretty stellar job. Her voice is perfectly snobby, well fit to the New York uppercrust society of the 1910s. I wonder, though, whether the people of that time would sound British, as Caruso does. Not exactly a criticism so much as a curious concern.

She did not particularly differentiate the voices of characters, beyond those of Archer (essentially her voice but a shade deeper) and Madame Olenska (she had a uniquely husky tone). The other ladies and men all sounded the same. Her voice for men was hilarious; they all sound like fat, wealthy, pompous, cigar-smoking, brandy drinking old white men. Of course, most of them probably were.

Although I have complained of other narrators for not doing voices for the characters (although that was compounded with another issue), I didn't mind the way she did it. Her voice is full of inflection and made listening a pleasure, even if I couldn't tell Mr. Lefferts from Mr. Letterblair without the text's helpful clues in that direction (aka. Mr. Lefferts said).

My biggest complaint about this audiobook is that nowhere on the internet could I find a photo of the cover. For real. I don't have a scanner, so I am using the image of the book version I have of The Age of Innocence. Also, Recorded Books should improve their website, because it is completely absurd not to have the latest cover up.

Rating: 3/5

"Everybody's talking how I, can't, can't be your love
But I want, want, want to be your love
Want to be your love for real
Want to be your everything"

We Work the Black Seam - Sting

How Green Was My Valley

Author: Richard Llewellyn
Narrator: Ralph Cosham
Duration: 16 hrs, 23 mins
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Story:
How Green Was My Valley is a man in his 60s looking back on his youth in a coal mining valley in Wales. The focus is on the romantic drama of his family, the difficulties of coal mining, the need for a union, education by the British and the way that industrialization is slowly poisoning the beautiful green valley. I did not much care for the story.

For the most part, the book seemed to be a Welsh, male-focused combination of North and South (which has the unions, depression and industrialization) and Little Women (which has the big family, the awful schoolmaster, and the complicated romantic entanglements, wherein siblings steal romantic prospects from one another).

Oh, one thing that's central to the book that I forgot to list previously: fighting. Huw, the narrator and youngest boy in a big family, is taught that phsyical violence is the right way to respond to and insult, verbal or otherwise. When he starts school and boys destroy his pencil box, he challenges them all to a fight. Unsurprisingly, they whup him. When he goes home, he is given money, told to keep fighting until he wins, and given boxing lessons. Later, he beats up his teacher, who was mean but still. Both his parents praise him for this behavior. Ummm, no.

Audiobook Performance:
Without a doubt, this was the worst audiobook to listen to thus far. The story lent itself well to the format, but the narration was incredibly awful. For one thing, the guy's voice was annoying and did not sound particularly Welsh. I had to do research in the beginning to figure out where the story was set.

What makes the narration so awful, though, is that his voice is incredibly monotonous. He speaks at the same speed and the same volume all the time. Nor does he supply different voices for the characters. Thus, this audiobook consists of almost 17 hours of unvaried tone. Painful!

Rating: .5/5

"This place has changed for good
Your economic theory said it would
It's hard for us to understand
We can't give up our jobs the way we should
Our blood has stained the coal
We tunneled deep inside the nation's soul
We matter more than pounds and pence
Your economic theory makes no sense"

Cuckoo's Nest - Nickel Creek

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Author: Mark Twain
Narrator: Ian Lynch
Duration: 7 hrs, 12 mins
Publisher: Cherry Hill Publishing

Allow me to preface this review by informing my reader that I do not much care for southern accents. I do not find them appealing. I say this as a southern girl (with no accent...I'm Atlanta born and raised). This audiobook definitely plays up the southern-ness of the story. The narrator pulls out the accent, which, perfectly fitting to the story though it may be, annoys me greatly.

In middle school, I had to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which seemed to me at the time to be essentially a form of torture exacted by my teacher. I can say, gratefully, that this one was not so bad, although whether that is the audio format or the different, shorter book, it's hard to say.

The story did not hugely impress me, although it was interesting to learn the details of a book about which my only knowledge was drawn from Wishbone. True fact. As I was listening, I kept trying to remember what I knew about it and I just now realized that all I know is thanks to a spunky Jack Russell terrier. Man, I miss that show.

Anyway, the book was not too bad. Except for the blatant racism. The discussions of black people and of Injun Joe were certainly what would be expected of a man of Twain's time, but definitely are completely awful. Also, there was one scene in which Tom was talking about being a pirate in which he describes how pirates or robbers get ladies; his description is essentially of Stockholm Syndrome. Terrifying!!!

Lynch did, accent issues put aside, a really good job with the book. His voices were really unique, almost always allowing me to know who was speaking, even if I missed the part that said who was talking. Aunt Polly's voice definitely grated, even beyond the accent, but I thought his Tom definitely conveyed the excitement of a young, incorrigible boy.

The production of the audiobook seems to have been done pretty well. I liked the music, which had a sort of slouch-y, casual southern feel to it that fit perfectly. What was odd, though, was that the music seemed to occur at completely random intervals.

It's a Hard Life - Queen

David Copperfield

Author: Charles Dickens
Narrator: Charlton Griffin
Duration: 38 hrs, 55 mins
Publisher: Audio Connoisseur

Once again, I listened to the audiobook of this classic. Thank goodness for that, as I do not know whether I would have made it through the novel had I been reading it, or, if I did, it would have taken a matter of months. It's funny how though listening to audiobooks is slower than reading it can, at times, be much faster.

The reason this would have been a really slow novel for me to read was the complete lack of plot. It is the autobiographical fictional biography of the title character. He begins with his childhood and goes into his old age. There is no narrative to speak of. What I expected was that it would be about how David Copperfield overcame the incredibly evil Uriah Heep, since the only thing I knew about the novel was that he was the bad guy, but that's not really how it was.

While the story wasn't bad, and I am glad that I managed to get through it just because of its fame, I definitely was never anywhere close to loving it. I never connected with the characters and saw a lot of the plot twists coming from a ways away. If interested in Dickens, I would recommend instead the rather less well-known Bleak House (and watching the miniseries...so good!).

There are a number of audiobook versions of this novel, I do believe. I would certainly recommend this one, although I have not listened to the others, for one determined to get through the classic novel David Copperfield. For one thing, you get to listen to fancy classical music at the beginning and conclusion of each of the 60 chapters. I love that, although I do regret that an already incredibly long book is made longer. The production seems to have been fairly good, although they did miss editing quite a bit of Griffin's breathing.

Griffin does a really good job as a narrator, as his pompous voice fits quite well to the lofty air of Dickens' writing. He also is remarkable at doing voices, not to Robin Williams' level, but his various characters were generally quite distinct. In fact, many of the voices did not much resemble his his regular voice, so much so that it was sometimes difficult to believe that the whole thing was recorded by this one man.

Unfortunately, some of the voices were rather creepy or annoying. Uriah Heep, of course, is intentionally given an irritating, writhing voice, but creepiest by far is the voice he uses for young Davy Copperfield. I will be haunted by this voice for a while.

"Yes it's a hard life
In a world that's filled with sorrow
There are people searching for love in ev'ry way
It's a long hard fight
But I'll always live for tomorrow"

How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm - Andrew Bird

1919
U.S.A. Trilogy, Book 2

Author: John Dos Passos
Narrator: David Drummond
Duration: 16 hrs, 12 mins
Publisher: Tantor Audio

What a seriously strange book this was. Having received a copy of this book to listen to, I was somewhat dismayed to discover that it was the second book in a series. I absolutely abhor reading or listening to things out of order. However, I decided to start in on it without attempting book one, figuring that if I liked what I was hearing, I could run out and find book one and come back to 1919. The fact that I am reviewing this, having not reviewed the first book in the series should be rather telling.

1919 has zero plot. This is by design, but that does not endear it any more to me. The book is told in various sections: headlines/jingles, stories about regular depressing Americans, autobiographical segments (called Camera Eye) and biographies of famous Americans. Although that mixture of elements sounded really intriguing to me, it came of ass just a confusing jumble, something that I suspect may have been worse in audio format, especially with the headlines.

None of the segments interested me at all, except for some of the stories of regular folk, although those tended not to keep me enthralled either. The problem was that every one of them will destroy themselves with bad decisions, as you discover in the forward by E. L. Doctorow. So, basically, even if I did like someone, it was inevitable that I would come to hate them because they would act like an idiot. Argh!

I will give the narrator his props, because I think he did a pretty good job with this confusing mess of a book. He happily sang the songs in the headline bits and did a pretty good job differentiating the sections. I think he did mispronounce some of the Italian though.

This definitely was not a book for me. In theory, it sounded interesting, but the execution of the different sections and the pointlessness of the main people's stories just wore me down. Maybe it would have been better had I read the first book.

"How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm
after they've seen Paris, Paris?"

The Brain from Young Frankenstein: The Musical

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

Author: H. P. Lovecraft
Pages: 360 (followed by 60 pages of notes)
Review Copy Acquired from: Penguin Classics

The short stories of Lovecraft, at least the ones in this anthology, all seem to take place in the same universe. The stories have a lot in common with another. For one thing, they all focus on some sort of mythical monster/god/evil creation of a mad scientist / reader of the Necronomicon. Also, if one were narrating them, it would be really difficult to resist the urge to end the telling of each with DUN-DUN-DUN.

At first, I really was not feeling this at all. Lovecraft's writing is very flowery and ornate, which I felt did not lend itself particularly well to tales of horror. All of the extra information and verbiage lessened any sense of urgency that the stories were trying to convey. As I became more familiar with his narrative style and realized the connections underlying each story, I found myself coming to enjoy the stories.

These tales are often hugely unsurprising in their final twists. The plot lines herein will be familiar to most people who have ever watched a horror film or read a horror story. At first, this irritated me, but this too turned to some amount of fascination when I considered that they were probably fairly original plot lines then. He may have originated some of these ideas, which is pretty cool.

While this will not be for everyone, I definitely think that anyone who really liked Mary Shelley's Frankenstein will adore this, as it was clearly a huge influence upon him. Plus, the cover on this edition is completely gorgeous, even if I doubt Cthulhu would actually look like that.

Pretty Women - Johnny Depp & Alan Rickman

Bel Ami

Author: Guy de Maupassant
Narrator: John McDonough
Duration: 14 hrs, 41 min
Publisher: Recorded Books

Bel Ami tells the story of Georges Duroy, a man with a magnificent mustache and a desire for advancement and women. Throughout the novel, he attempts to obtain these things, using his incredibly seductive mustache. This is not a joke. Oh how I wish it was.

I seriously hated this novel, which I listened to in audiobook form. Almost from the first, I wanted nothing more than to punch this smarmy French bastard in the face. He is an incredibly awful person and has absolutely zero respect for women. Actually, I think this book should have been subtitled "Monsieur Mustache Seduces Every Woman of His Acquaintance." Why? Because he really does. He beds every female character with more than a couple of lines. The end result of his great success is to categorize all women as whores. Thank you so much for writing this Guy de Maupassant. Womenkind is so grateful.

On top of that, all of these relationships, with the exception of one (which involves seducing the daughter of a mother he seduced), involves adultery. I know that there is a fine French tradition of viewing adulterous relationships as the home of real love, but this isn't the time period of Chretien de Troyes. All of these people are completely awful and unlike other bits of pop culture (like Mad Men) with only terrible characters, these are not even interesting. I don't give a damn about how good anyone is at playing cup and ball, of which there are numerous descriptions.

The audiobook itself was pretty awful as well, I thought. For one thing, the editing does not seem to have been done very well, as the narrator's deep, rattly breaths are often audible. Speaking of which, McDonough does not make a satisfying narrator for this particular story. The book is about a young, attractive man, skilled in seduction, which means that an old man with gasping breaths that make him sound close to death may not be the ideal choice for a narrator. This is not to say that McDonough could not be an excellent narrator for another book that was better edited, but he was not the right choice for Bel Ami.

P.S. Today's song captures the creepiness of Duroy's treatment of women, his tendency to idolize them and take advantage of them. It also recalled the seen where Madame Walter tied her hair around his buttons.

"Blowing out their candles or
Combing out their hair,
Combing out their hair then they leave
Even when they leave you and vanish they somehow can still can remain there with you
Even when they leave
They still are there.
They're there
Ah! Pretty women"

Bell Boy - The Who

An American Tragedy

Author: Theodore Dreiser
Narrator: Dan John Miller
Duration: 34 hours, 16 minutes
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Brief Summary:
Clyde Griffiths' parents are street preachers and from a young age, he resents their lifestyle. He hates being poor and being mocked by the people who walk past. He doesn't see that God is actually working any wonders in their lives. If so, wouldn't they be better? Unlike the rest of his family, Clyde is filled with ambition. He goes out, in his early teens, to get a job. Eventually, he gets work as a bell boy in the swankiest hotel in Kansas City, where the other bell boys introduce him to a lifestyle he never previously knew. This was the beginning of his descent into a life completely unlike that of his parents, one that would end in nothing but tragedy.

Review:
Just a warning to my dear readers. I do not believe I can discuss this book without spoilers, given the fact that it is really long and most of the parts I want to write about come later in the novel. With that said, you may want to not read this review if you don't want the book to be spoilered. The next couple paragraphs will be safe, since they will be a review of the audiobook version.

Confession: For many years, I have judged audiobook listeners as people unwilling to actually read a book. I don't know why. Listening to a book takes way longer than reading it and certainly I would consider someone reading a book or play aloud to me as having 'read' it. I imagine my completely unfair prejudice stems from having disliked the first couple audiobooks I listened to (back in middle school when they were books on tape). After that, I didn't listen to any more until graduate school.

What I would like to announce officially is that audiobooks can be really amazing and can, in point of fact, be better, for some books, than reading it the traditional way would have been. Not having read An American Tragedy, I am still fairly certain this is one such book. Dreiser writes in a style that imitates speech in many instances and that, thus, lends itself well to the audiobook format.

The narrator, Dan John Miller, has a voice that, although it took me a little bit to get used to, fits well with the time period (the 1920s). Apparently, Miller is from Detroit and sings in a gothic country garage band. He also acted in Walk the Line as Luther Perkins. He does a great job of making most of the main characters' voices recognizable and speaks at a good pace. I heard a couple of weirdly pronounced words and some strange accents from some of the smaller characters. Otherwise, he did a great job, and I very much enjoyed his performance.

Now, to the novel itself. I feared that I would absolutely hate this novel, as the only thing I had ever heard about Dreiser was people talking about how completely terrible Sister Carrie is. Thankfully, when I started listening, I found myself really enjoying it, which is good, given that it's a 32 hour audiobook. The novel is composed of four books, all of which are rather different. The first 3/4 of the novel, I really enjoyed, but the last 1/4 was really rough going.

The opening book discusses Clyde's life in Kansas City, from his time with his parents street preaching through the tragic event that compelled him to leave (although he totally was not guilty of a crime in that case, so he should have gone to the police and explained and would have been fine). Learning about 1920s society was fun, such as work as a bell boy. I also really loved reading about how dumb Clyde was in his pursuit of a girl he was completely obsessed with. She didn't like him so much as she liked his pocketbook, and constantly had him buy her things. Poor Clyde just is not very smart.

After fleeing Kansas City, Clyde spends book two trying to figure out what to make of himself. He adopts an alias while he works in Chicago. He escapes life in the hotel industry when he happens across his wealthy uncle, Samuel Griffiths, and is offered a position in his collar factory. Clyde is convinced this will be his chance to enter high society (as high as it gets in Lycurgas, NY) and to advance in his career. When he arrives, though, he finds that his hopes were to high. Although his Uncle did give him a position, he has to start at the very bottom of the totem pole, and he is given no leg up in society. Eventually, he gets a promotion to a management position in a department and, once again, hopes that he will be accepted into society. When this doesn't follow, he begins an affair with one of the women he oversees, Roberta Alden, despite such behavior being strictly forbidden.

In book three (I think...the border between these two is less clear than the others), Clyde finally gets noticed by the upper glass girl he has had a crush on since he first saw her, during the one time he was invited to his Uncle's house for dinner. This Sondra Finchley notices how much he adores her and how attractive he is, and decides to exert her influence to bring him into society, while falling to his charms, despite her parent's warnings not to get too attached. Clyde begins deserting Roberta, now hoping to marry Sondra. About that time, Roberta informs him that she's pregnant. He tries to get her out of it (pills to miscarry, then to find a doctor to perform an abortion), but cannot. Driven to desperation and still determined to marry Sondra, he refuses to marry Roberta, as she insists, and begins to plan to murder her. He does, or doesn't, depending on your point of view (I'll leave some mystery); either way, Roberta ends up drowned in a lake and Clyde is soon tracked down.

The last quarter of the novel covers Clyde's trial, his time on death row (surprise!) and his death bed conversion to Christianity. Told you. Spoilers. But I really wanted to talk about this, because, while the most boring part of the novel, I suspect that this may be Dreiser's ultimate message, one of the evils of capital punishment and the glories of God's redemption. Also interesting was how he chose to end the novel, which is with a scene reminiscent of the beginning. Clyde's parents, his elder sister and her illegitimate son preaching on the street just as they did when he was a child. Does this forebode ill for his nephew?

In honor of the part of the novel, I most enjoyed, I chose a song that encapsulates Clyde's crazy bell boy years. If you're interested in reading this book, I definitely recommend the audiobook version!

"I've got a good job
And I'm newly born.
You should see me dressed up in my uniform.
I work in hotel, all gilt and flash."

Beware of Darkness - George Harrison

A Wrinkle in Time
Time Quintet, Book 1

Author: Madeleine L'Engle
Pages: 190
Publisher: Dell Publishing Co.

I first read A Wrinkle in Time at some point during my elementary school career, probably for class, although I'm really not sure now. At the time, I was completely blown away by it. My memory of the plot and characters was not completely accurate, even though I believe I reread it sometime in high school as well. Like with The Giver, A Wrinkle in Time is a beloved book from childhood that does not retain all of its majesty when read as an adult.

This is not to say, of course, that it's not an interesting read or a good book, just that some things I didn't notice then I recognize now. For example, there's a definite theology to the book that I missed entirely. The references to God are minimal, but full of impact when they occur. Without doing a careful study, I cannot say precisely what L'Engle's theology is, but I'm not entirely sure that I like it.

Another thing that displeased was the ending. The resolution of the story comes suddenly and was, at least for me, pretty unsatisfying. I do wonder whether that resolution had some effect on J.K. Rowling, because it is in some ways reminiscent of the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Another comparison I was able to make was that the science fiction bits remind me rather of the first book in C.S. Lewis' space trilogy.

What I loved about this book, and still do, was the understanding that intelligence comes in many forms, and that people are not always whom you expect them to be. Meg and Charles Wallace are both considered slow because they do not live the way 'normal' smart people do. Calvin seems normal, but is actually a huge nerd, who, unfortunately, I do not love quite so much now as I did as a child. He was definitely one of my first loves. A Wrinkle in Time urges the reader to think of the world in a new way, and that is fantastic.

Plus, it has dystopian elements. Hurrah! (Should I be cheering for that?) Anyway, the dark thing that is surrounding planets and instilling negative feelings is working on Earth. It's good to know that much of the trouble humans have is actually not our fault, right? Dystopia via giant, evil alien attacker. Sweet. You could maybe also include the planet Camazotz, which is another kind of dystopian society, although one that was in good functioning order.

P.S. I have an old edition of this (not of value or anything) from 1976. It's the kind where the pages are not all set right, so that on some pages the print tilts obviously, on others the paragraphs abut the outer edge of the book, and on others, the worst pages, the text runs into the spine. This makes reading rather difficult and sometimes results in puzzling out portions of words, but, on some level, I find it really charming how each book came out slightly different. It makes it seem less mass-produced and more special and just for you.

P.P.S. Am I the only one who thinks the evil face on the cover, which I'm guessing is supposed to be the brain from Camazotz, is entirely reminiscent of the Face of Bo? Except for the whole being imbued with menace thing?

"Watch out now,
Take care beware the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night
Beware of sadness

It can hit you, it can hurt you -
Make you sore and what is more,
That is not what you are here for"

Train Song - Ben Gibbard & Feist

The Train

Author: Georges Simenon
Pages: 153
ARC Acquired from: Melville House Publishing via NetGalley

Brief Summary:
With the approach of the Germans, Marcel Feron flees Fumay, France with his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, women and children are given a different place on the train. When the train cars are shuffled around, Marcel is separated from his family. The train journey the refugees take is a long and wandering one, prompted by the hope to escape the Nazis. Along the way, Marcel begins an affair with one of the only women from his train car, Anna.

Review:
Believe it or not, I was a History major in undergrad, not English, although, given my love of literature, that might have been the obvious choice. I do also really enjoy reading about history, although I do it less, since so many academic historians write so dryly and reading their books is like pulling teeth. My favorite historical periods to study are World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War, not the battles so much, but what life was like. I am a sucker for novels about these time periods as much as I am for ya books with corsets on the cover.

I tried, somewhat halfheartedly, to find out some historical background on The Train, but was not particularly successful. Apparently, the book was forgotten after its initial publication and is now being republished in a snazzy new cover by Melville House, which is doing the same for a number of old titles. The initial publication in English was in 1964.

The book itself was somewhat of a disappointment. It had some inherent interest, because Simenon discussed a section of wartime life I knew nothing about, which I always love. The refugees on the trains are reminiscent of Holocaust memoirs, only they had it so incredibly easy. Their trains made so many stops, so they could get out and do their business, and they were given free, pretty plentiful and delicious food at each station. They had enough space to lay down in the train cars. Still, they were pretty cramped and they had no idea where they were going or precisely what would happen to them when they got there. This was all cool.

The main problem I had with The Train was either the translation or Simenon's writing style, although I cannot say which. The syntax was often odd and stilted, making me need to read a few sentences a couple of times to figure out what was going on. Its like the rhythm is just a little bit off somehow.

I also did not appreciate reading yet another book about an affair. Sigh. To be fair though, the affair did support the story and made perfect sense in context. The freedom that everyone felt was a part of the train journey too. It was so different from daily experience that people felt uninhibited: "I wasn't alone in feeling outside ordinary life and its conventions" (126).

Also cool is the question of how reliable of a narrator Marcel really is. Some of his assertions definitely need to be taken with a cellar of salt. At only 153 pages, The Train is well-worth the time it takes to read for the unique reflection on WWII life.

"It's so many miles and so long since I've left you
Don't even know what I'll find when I get to you
But suddenly now, I know where I belong
It's many hundred miles and it won't be long"