I’m still slogging through Sophie’s Choice. Instead of posting about the recent 50 pages or so that I’ve read (nothing’s happened; Sophie hasn’t even been given a choice yet) I’m going to share a few of my favorite books, a list which The Sheltering Sky has recently joined, in no particular order:

An Invisible Sign of my Own by Aimee Bender
Something about this book spoke to me like nothing I’ve ever read. The simple, elegant prose paired with the strange world described in the pages hooked me from the beginning and the plot made me tumble through it quickly. The main character deals with a father who is sick, and the first time I read the book my dad was sick with pulmonary embolism. When I read the book it felt like Ms. Bender had written it just for me.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
I love all dystopic fiction and this is probably my favorite. I can definitely see some pieces of our current world in the predictions of these pages. It also mirrors the love I have for books.

Flying Leap by Judy Budnitz
This collection of short stories is haunting. I wouldn’t call them horror stories, but they definitely get to you. I recommend not reading more than two stories in one sitting or your brain will start to hurt and you will see strange shadows in the dark.

Oracle Night by Paul Auster
I love Paul Auster’s work and Oracle Night is my favorite of his that I’ve read so far. Auster deals with the fine line between truth and fiction and how what we write becomes what we are.

Jennifer Government by Max Barry
I bought this book after playing the online Nation States game. (Remember that?) It was probably the best marketing scheme and use of social media ever, even before “social media” was a term. The book is way better than playing the game. It’s a dystopic novel that focuses on a world that is run by corporations. Corporations sponsor education and your last name is your company. (I’d be “Alli Housecall.”)

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
My favorite young adult fantasy series, this trilogy is amazingly written and thought-provoking. I will warn anyone thinking of picking it up that I cried more reading these books than any other piece of literature.

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
The first Vonnegut work I ever read, and I loved it. I don’t remember much of what it was about as I haven’t read it since high school and I have a horrible memory for stories, but I’ve recommended it to many people and no one has complained. I’ll be reading it again sometime, probably when my project is over.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
This novel is amazing and heartbreaking. I mentioned when writing about The Ginger Man how Virginia Woolf does stream-of-consciousness writing so well and Mrs. Dalloway is a prime example. If literature is an expression of what it means to be human, which I believe with sincerity is true, Mrs. Dalloway may be the best piece of literature ever written.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Nothing really needs to be said about this novel; the way it has withstood the test of time speaks for itself.

How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez
A wonderful coming-of-age story that’s beautifully written and fascinating. The book is written in vignette style which I particularly enjoy. Books like this, which I read for class, make my happy I became an English major or else I may never have heard of or thought to read this book.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
I borrowed this book from my dad, who said he loved it. I knew that I would probably love it too, since my dad and I seem to like similar things. I didn’t know when I picked it up that it was about a father and a son. I’m very close to my dad, and any piece of fiction involving a positive father/child relationship brings tears to my eyes. If I hadn’t finished reading this book while riding the bus, it probably would have beat out His Dark Materials for the most tears. I also loved how the writing style fit in so well with the setting–barren except for only the necessities.

Fishbowl by Sarah Mlynowski
It’s true, I don’t only read literary classics and depressing descriptions of future scenarios we might be bringing upon ourselves. Fishbowl markets itself as chick-lit, but it’s really more about the relationship between the three roommates than romance (although there is a little of that). The book is hilarious, and I find myself re-reading it when I need to forget about my own problems and laugh at someone else’s.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
I’ve mentioned this book before because I have an odd love/hate relationship with it. I’ve never been so angry at the end of a book before. At first I claimed to hate the book because even though I devoured it like a starving person at a hot-dog eating contest, the ending made me very angry. It was like the same starving person vomiting the hot-dogs up. But it stuck in my head, like the aftertaste of vomited hot-dogs. The hot-dog analogy ends there, because after so much thinking about it I realized it made me angry so much because I loved it.

The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood
I avoided reading Margaret Atwood for a long time even though I knew I’d probably like her work. Finally after looking for another dystopic book to read, I caved and read this. Of course, I loved it.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
I consider Of Mice and Men to be the first piece of “real classic literature” I ever read and it was in 9th grade English. I wish I enjoyed The Grapes of Wrath half as much (I’m dreading reading it again for the project) but I love his short story The Chrysanthemums even better.

Dune by Frank Herbert
I don’t really have much to say about this book other than that it’s a wonderfully fascinating sci-fi/fantasy story and probably one of the most highly regarded pieces of science fiction for good reason–it’s an incredible book.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kasey
This is the book that began this entire project because it made me wonder what other wonderful books are out there that I haven’t had a chance to read, or that I missed the brilliance the first time around.

I wonder what other books on the list will be added to my list.

Books Left: 96
Days Left: 671
Current Book: Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

I’m behind in my reading and Sophie’s Choice by William Styron isn’t helping. The book is nearly 600 pages of small font that decreases in size whenever a letter or a piece of writing by the main character is included, which happens frequently. The writing is dry in a way that makes it difficult to read yet it fits with the main character who is an aspiring novelist. I can see why he would want to use obscure words whenever possible and how he might think that every tiny detail of his life is worth being memorialized even when it doesn’t relate in any way to the plot.

Although I don’t know exactly what the plot is. I’m only on page 58.

I left my ride in the car while I went grocery shopping, giving him the book as entertainment. He managed to get further into it than I did and had a couple choice things to say via text message:

“This book is awful. It’s all over the road. Hope you can read German, French, and Polish. Sophie’s already made her choice.”

Later he asked me how the book was going and I confessed that I hadn’t even met Sophie yet. “She’s mean and obnoxious,” he said.

“What do they see in her then?” I asked.

“I have no idea. They say she has a really great bum. They mention this several times.”

Lovely. I think I might need some encouragement to help me get through this one.

[I must include a quick plug here for my newest literary project, perhaps a bit more lowbrow this time: Hot Guys Reading Books.]

Books Left: 96
Days Left: 676

I’ve been putting off this post because I haven’t been ready to let The Sheltering Sky go. Usually when I read a book that I hits me this hard I wait a while before picking up another one. I know it will most likely be a disappointment.

I’ve also been afraid to ask the question, the “does this book belong on the top 100 books from the 20th century list?” question. I don’t want my answers to be based simply on if I enjoy the book or not. I felt after finishing that I need to make up some sort of criteria. The Modern Library folks must have had a criteria when they created their list (although it remains a mystery). So I’ve come up with something that I might revise in the future, but for now I think it will work. I’m also going to be fairly flexible with it. I don’t think every book should have to fit every criteria, but it should fit most.

Is the book well written?

While I am using my own judgment, I’ve done a lot of reading and I think I can judge if a book is well-written or not. (And from the reviews on Amazon, a lot of people agreed with me that The Ginger Man was poorly written.) As for The Sheltering Sky, it wasn’t just well written, it was amazingly and beautifully written so that I didn’t read in chunks by just scanning over the pages but instead I read each solitary word at a time sometimes even stopping to go over a paragraph just so I could hear those words flow together again in my head.

Does it speak about the human condition?

One thing I took out of all the literature classes I attended was that there is one underlying theme that ties together all good literature: it describes what it means to be human. The Sheltering Sky is no exception. Kit struggles with the whole concept of humanity at the end of the novel where she rejects language and for a time embraces a sort of slavery. She doesn’t want to deal with the emotions that come along with being human and does everything she can to escape that confrontation.

This quote by Gore Vidal says more: “The floor to this ramshackle civilization that we have built cannot bear much longer our weight. It was Bowles’s genius to suggest the horrors which lie beneath that floor, as fragile, in its way, as the sky that shelters us from a devouring vastness”

Is it groundbreaking in some way?

From my limited online research I found nothing to suggest that The Sheltering Sky helped to spawn a particular movement of literature or other art forms, or discuss an issue that society was afraid to acknowledge. However, I must give it a few points in this category because I never read anything else quite like it.

Is it an enjoyable read?

Some literature scholars might argue this question, but I think it’s completely valid. Historically storytelling had two main purposes. One was to preserve history, and the other was to entertain. The truth is, most people read because it’s fun and there is nothing wrong with that. Reading is fun. I enjoyed reading The Sheltering Sky immensely. The setting captured me and the characters fascinated me. I couldn’t want to have a minute to read a few more pages.

Yes, The Sheltering Sky deserves to be on the 20th century list. And moreover, it deserves to be on my own list of my favorite books of all time.

I’m breathless.

Once in a blue moon a book will do this to me, where as I turn the page and realize I have no more left to read I find myself gasping for another page or just one more paragraph or word so I can breathe in that experience just a little while longer.

Later I will write my traditional “does this book belong in a top 100 books” list but right now I want to gush a little. Right now I feel so happy that I began this project because I discovered this book. Sometimes I have this fear that I wont live long enough to find and read every book that I will end up loving.

The setting in The Sheltering Sky is incredible. The desert is a character itself, the way it affects the people in the story. The way Kit (the wife) in particular reacts to the events would be completely different without the hot days, cold nights, sand, and flies. The sky, referenced in the title, is important as well. The characters talk about how the sky is sheltering. In reality, the sky is a human concept. In the end of the story, Kit creates a mental layer of protection. She finds language as a threat, it attempts to keep it from bringing her thoughts back. Most of us think in words, and she wants nothing to do with them.

(Photo via yosoyjulito.)

Books Left: 97
Days Left: 687
Current Book: The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

I don’t always read the Preface. This time I decided to read the preface, because I’d never heard of The Sheltering Sky before and I thought it would be beneficial to The Displaced English Major project for me to do so. It was also short. It also gave away an important plot detail that happens halfway thought the novel. Since I was spoiled by the Preface, I decided it wasn’t fair for me to have to read the author’s huge spoiler but not any of you:

The male protagonist dies halfway through the book.

Now that the giant spoiler is out of the way, let me express something else: I absolutely without a doubt am in love with this book. I am not halfway through yet (so I have not yet reached the point in which Port, the male protagonist, dies–just in case you missed that bit above in bold text) so I suppose it could be possible for the ending to dissuade me from continuing to love it so much. This is what originally happened with Special Topics in Calamity Physics, but eventually I decided I still liked the book despite the conclusion.

I doubt this will happen here, as in Special Topics I was drawn in by the plot while I like The Sheltering Sky for other reasons:

1. The setting. Children are often encouraged to read because books are like doorways to far away settings. Case in point:

This can be true for adults as well. The Sheltering Sky takes place in North Africa, which the author Paul Bowles spent a great deal of time exploring. I’ve always had a fascination with deserts and these places (particularly Morocco, although the book does not take place there specifically) and the other day while cold and irritated waiting for a metro train to arrive, I thought, “Forget this. I’m going to escape to the desert.” And so I did.

2. Paul Bowles’s characters are fascinating. I find Kit, the female protagonist, to be particularly well developed. She views the world as a series of omens, and is continually trying to counteract them in some way. But at the same time, she values logic and reason and sees her husband (the ticking time bomb of death, Port) as the human personification of these attributes. Their relationship is so fascinating. They both practice infidelity. But they do love each other and despite insisting on separate rooms in each hotel you can see them grow closer as the book gains momentum. However, they want this closeness for different reasons. I am still trying to figure out why they do not sleep in the same bed together. This boggles me.

3. More than anything else, I love this book because Paul Bowles has a way with words that is exeedingly rare. Allow a few examples to speak from themselves, starting with this one from the first chapter, which describes Port right after he just woke up in his hotel room:

He yawned: there was no air in the room. Later he would climb down from the high bed and fling the window open, and at that moment he would remember his dream. For although he could not recall a detail of it, he knew he had dreamed. On the other side of the window would be air, the roofs, the town, the sea.

This next brief excerpt explores Kit’s thoughts as she and Port have a similar reaction to the sunset while on a bike ride:

She did not answer. It made her sad to realize that in spite of their so often having the same reactions, the same feelings, they never would reach the same conclusions, because their respective aims in life were almost diametrically opposed.

This last piece I’m not going to provide a frame of reference for. I’m already spoiling you enough just by including it here:

She could no longer think, nor were there any more images in her head. She was aware only of the softness of the woolen bathrobe next to her skin, and then the nearness and warmth of a being that did not frighten her. The rain beat against the window panes.

I often read very quickly. I take in whole chunks at once, skipping forward on a page and then running my eyes back to see how the characters got to that point a few paragraphs before. Very rarely does a book come along that forces me to read every word individually and savor it like a rich velvety dessert. I fear this book may be spoiling me and that nothing else on the list will be quite this good.

Books Left: 97
Days Left: 690

I know I just wrote about The Postman Always Rings Twice yesterday, but the book is extremely short and I finished it on the metro on the way to work this morning, and I already picked up the next one. The 116 pages were a fast and emotional yet well-crafted read. It was like being on one of those tall wooden roller coasters where you can feel the beams shake as you fly up and down the hills with knots in your stomach.

The answer to the question regarding if this book deserves to be on the top 100 list is a resounding yes. Not only did I enjoy the read but it made me think about the issue of morality and how complicated it can be. I saw Frank (the moral vacuum) and Cora (the wife) see themselves in an impossible situation with no way out and while I would never resort to murder I can understand how it can feel to be trapped.

We have all felt trapped by our circumstances at one point or another. Currently I feel trapped by the snow that continues to pile up in my front yard, and on the streets and sidewalks and all over everything making it nearly impossible to go anywhere!

The Postman Always Rings Twice is considered a quintessential work of hardboiled fiction, which is also referred to as noir or pulp fiction. What makes this detective fiction hardboiled as opposed to over-easy is the lack of fluff. The crimes are not glamorous or clever. The writing is to-the-point without elaborate descriptions. The sleuths are not particularly quirky, if they even exist at all. It makes sense to me that a standard piece for a popular genre receive recognition. Particularly if the piece, like this, is actually well written and thought provoking.

That said, I still don’t understand the title. I spent the entire book waiting for the postman to show up and ring the doorbell, but this never happened. I suppose the “postman ringing” could be a metaphor for death, and they had to kill the Greek twice. That would relate as well to the two deaths that occurred before Frank was actually accused of killing anyone. There were also two cats that played significant roles in the story. If I thought more, I bet I could think of a lot of instances of things happening twice.

Now I’m thinking like an English major.

Books Left: 98
Days Left: 691
Current Book: The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

I’m going to write about my initial thoughts on The Postman Always Rings Twice quickly now before I actually finish the book. This is why I might get it finished so quickly:

Yes, that is me and I am working from home, or to be more specific, working from the snow fort in my front yard. I was lucky to have heat, electricity, and most importantly internet access unlike so many in the DC metro area. (And yes, if you clicked the link you’ll see that the Weather Gang is reporting another big snowstorm tomorrow night!) This storm has had a devastating effect on my social life and let’s just say that if LOST is overrun with weather updates I might go crazy and hit someone in the head while they’re in the car and then push the car over a cliff.

That’s what happened in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Novel 98 on the list is yet another tale of a morally bankrupt man. (Noticing a trend yet?) This morally bankrupt man gets a woman to fall in love with him. (Notice another trend?) This woman is married to a man known as the Greek, and doesn’t like him because he’s Greek, because apparently Greeks are a race that should be stygmatized (this is news to me–all I know is that the food is incredibly good and the men look like this–I don’t see a problem here!) and she wants out.

So our main character, the moral vacuum, decides murdering him is the only way out. He gets the wife to go along with him since her upstairs is vacant. He has no money, so if the Greek dies his wife will get all his land, his shop, etc. But the first time they try it fails and he takes out a life insurance plan which makes their second sucessful try more tricky, because the life insurance company doesn’t want to pay out if it’s murder.

It’s a great story so far and the writing is top notch. Even though we have another antihero, I can’t help but kinda sorta want them to get away with it, mainly because I feel for the wife. Similarly I was rooting for George Minafer as The Magnificent Ambersons came to a close as well. But not once did I want anything good to happen to Sebastian Dangerfield.

I think much of that comes down to good writing. Booth Tarkington and James. M. Cain were able to construct characters that were, essentially, unpleasant people that we’d never want anything good to come of in real life but write them in such a way that inspire our sympathies.

Books Left: 98
Days Left: 696

I can’t tell what’s getting on my nerves the most right now, if it’s the upcoming blizzard, the fact that the washing machine at my house is always in use when I want to use it, or that Sebastian Dangerfield did not get arrested at the end of the book, despite stealing toilet paper from the American embassy in England.This should be funny, right? The book is described as a “comic masterpiece” and it’s odd because when I think back to a couple events in the novel, like the toilet paper robbery and the landlord Skully knocking at his window, they seem funny. (The bit of amusement I felt after reading the scene about Skully at the window faded quickly.) But while reading the thing? I laughed only once, and it wasn’t something Sebastian did or said at all but part of a letter he recieved from his friend in America:

This is America and we out-produce, out-sell, out-manufacture, out-fight, and out-screw the rest of the world but the latter is elusive.

There you have it. The only truely funny line in the entire 347 page novel. You may now avoid reading the whole thing to find it, as it is on page 333.

So how does it end? Instead of going to jail, Sebastian somehow manages to outrun everyone who is after him and at the end found a rich man who for some unknown reason likes him because, according to the rich guy, Sebastian was nice to him when he wasn’t rich. Which is a load of nonsense because Sebastian “borrowed” money from everyone. The rich guy kept handing him money and clothes and offering to give him haircuts where the novel leaves off with Sebastian shacking up with one of his mistresses having gone through no character development whatsoever. At least his wife finally had the sense to leave him.

Do I think the novel deserves to be on a list of the top 100 books of the 20th century? No. Not even the writing style could redeem it. I even think Donleavy’s failed attempt to write something in a stream of consciousness mode made the story that much harder to tolerate. Don’t get me wrong, I like the technique when it’s done well: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Thomas Pynchon are masters. But it’s not a stream, it’s choppy slashed up bits with the occasional phrase in first person, which isn’t clever, and the unraveling of prose into poetry at the end of chapters. I actually think the poetry is a clever idea that was poorly executed by Donleavy.

As Fred said in one of the comments, “Next!”

Books Left: 99
Days Left: 700
Current Book: The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy

I’m almost finished with The Ginger Man, but I feel no real reason to write about it. So instead, I’m going to talk about why I don’t like the word poignant.

Dictionary.com defines the poignant as having four definitions. When you see the word in a quote on the back of a paperback in Borders, it probably refers to one of two:

1. Keenly distressing to the feelings.
2. Keen or strong in mental appeal.

It’s not the meaning of the word I dislike. In fact, it reminds me more of music than of literature, and the way that certain combination of notes can wreck havoc on your heartstrings. I don’t like way the word sounds. Say it outloud, right now: Poin-yant. Hear those diphthongs? Diphthongs are nasty little combinations of vowel sounds. Diphthongs are why everyone hates the word moist, but could care less about the word damp. Can you think of a name with the sound “oi” or the sound “ya” in it? I couldn’t think of one. This is because diphthongs sound ugly. Poignant has not one, but two diphthongs.

The other thing I don’t like about the word poignant is how overused it is. Poignant is to book critics what seriously is to the characters on Grey’s Anatomy. If you need a good word to use instead of poignant, remember, the Thesaurus is your friend.

Other words that should be used in book critiques more often:

lush
epicurean
picaresque
haunting
spirited
kaleidoscopic
pithy
tenacious
genuine

Books Left: 99
Days Left: 706

Our antihero has now made himself wanted by two entities:

1) The police. Sebastian got himself into a bar fight by returning to a bar that had refused to serve him earlier on the grounds that he was too intoxicated. He broke some bottles and tried to beat up the bartender and stood on the bar and yelled and frightened people. He managed (to my shock and anger) to avoid the police and convince his mistress to let him into her apartment saying that the bartender had attacked him. The Ginger Man was originally banned in America, likely due to the sex scene between Sebastian and his mistress (Christine) earlier in the novel. Eventually the morning newspaper came and Christine read the story about the bar fight and wizened up to the fact that it was Sebastian who instigated the entire thing and kicked him out of her place.

2) His former landlord, aptly named Skully. Sebastian returned home to find all the furniture missing and a note from his wife (Marion) listing the new address where she now resides. At this point, I yell at the book. “You idiot! Why did you give him your address!” Luckily I was reading from home and not the metro. He sweet talked her into letting him live there. They made a shockingly wise decision to rent out one of the rooms for some extra money. Sebastian, not surprisingly insisted that the renter be a female. Her name is Miss Frost.

Anyway, Sebastian and Marion basically walked out on a three year lease from Skully, who seems like a very shoddy landlord. Marion’s intent was that Sebastian would keep the old place since he was the one who signed the lease. Somehow Skully found their new place (did Sebastian just leave Marion’s note in there for the landlord to find?) and starts banging on windows. Sebastian got him to leave by faking a British accent but he decided Miss Frost needed to hear a fake story about Skully so she doesn’t realize what’s going on. So he made up the most rediculous lie I ever heard:

Skully is an old acquaintance from the town where they used to live and is so messed up in the head that he thinks he’s their old landlord and they owe him rent but it’s just a figment of his insane mind.

Miss Frost buys the entire story. While I still think Sebastian Dangerfield needs to rot in jail, I’m finding The Ginger Man more and more amusing as I watch how he gets himself into, and out of, one crazy situation after another.