Book 40: Damned by Chuck Palahniuk

So, this one is cheating a little bit.  I listened to this book about a month ago as an audiobook.  Because of the start-and-stop nature and the length of time it took to finish the book in this format (I listened to it each night while doing dishes for about three weeks), I feel like I might not have gotten the full experience that I would have reading the paper version.  Therefore, I'm now reading the "real" book in order to debunk this idea or confirm it.  If, at the end of the week, I find that there are things that I missed while listening to the audiobook then I will probably stick with text.  Otherwise, hell, I might just pick up a few more audiobooks because it sure made dishes a bit more fun.

The physical version of this book is 246 pages or 36 pages per day.

REVIEW:  This was a fun read.  I didn't find that there was any difference between the audio and text versions of the book, and I didn't find that I missed anything by listening to the book rather than reading it.  It was definitely faster to read the book and I got a little surprise at the end when I saw that it said "To be continued...", but I'm not sure if that's just a joke on the author's part of if this really the first part of a series.  I really can't see where the book would go from where it left off, but hey, maybe Palahniuk knows what he's doing.

The book in general is very funny.  Palahniuk's version of hell is simultaneously disturbing, disgusting and hilarious.  I love the idea that the arch demons are really just ex-gods that nobody believes in anymore, hence making them angry and cruel.  The main character, Madison, was also very funny.  She constantly berates the reader for underestimating her intelligence and her vocabulary and ridicules the hypocrisy of her ultra-liberal yet highly materialistic jet-set celebrity parents.  I also found the parallel Palahniuk draws between the main group of characters and an analogous group of characters from a movie (I don't want to spoil it) to be very entertaining, though he ultimately didn't really do anything with this concept.

The main draw for the plot was that each character seemed to be in hell for a relatively minor offense (marijuana overdose, wearing white after Labor Day, etc.).  You know that there must be more to their stories, but the author strings you along with hints for most of the novel.  Unfortunately, after the "big reveal", there is a lot less to drive the story forward.  It feels like the narrative just starts to continue on the momentum of the first two-thirds of the book without a lot of direction.  Eventually, you get an ending without any real resolution and are stuck with a "To be continued..." to really drive the ambiguity home.

Weak, ambiguous ending aside, the book was quite fun to read and very funny in many places.  Another good Palahniuk novel though not among his top works.

7 out of 10.

Book 39: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

I've always liked this movie, but I've never read the source material.  Since I found a copy of the book recently I thought I'd give it a try.  I've also tried to read some other works by Ken Kesey without much luck.  I've always found him to be a little too off-kilter for me without much of a focused story. When telling people that this is the next book I'm intending to read I've been told a few times that it's really good.  So here goes...  It's about 330 pages, so that makes about 48 pages per day.

REVIEW:  I've been trying to get this book review going for a while now and I keep getting stuck.  It's just such a difficult novel to do justice to.  Let's just jump right in.

Kesey writes some extremely interesting characters.  The focus of the book is Randle McMurphy, a minor criminal, con-man and hooligan who has been given a short prison sentence and decides to feign insanity in order to serve out his term at a mental asylum, which he assumes will be comparatively easy and comfortable.  The inmates of the asylum are expertly written and very believable.  Rather than writing over-the-top, ranting and raving lunatics, Kesey has created complex characters with subtle problems that keep them from living normal lives.  The character that really shines for me, however, is that of the narrator, "Chief" Bromden.  Because everyone believes him to be deaf and mute and, therefore, harmless, he (and, therefore, the reader) is allowed access to areas normally off-limits giving a behind-the-scenes view of the hospital and the staff as well as the patients.  In addition, the Chief's inner dialogue gives realistic and sometimes disturbing views into the mind of a schizophrenic and a view of the ward from someone who probably actually belongs there.

Overall, the story is one of the individual versus the system.  Nurse Ratched has established an strict regimen in the ward and McMurphy is set up to resist and attempt to overthrow it.  It's a theme that is repeated many times in books from this era, especially the dystopic novels, in which I would nominally include this book.  The struggle of McMurphy to assert his independent nature against the authoritarian regime of Nurse Ratched is a war with battles won by both sides, though the ultimate outcome is never really in question.

The only bad things that I can think of about this book are really in comparing it to the film.  I don't really want to get into a film review here, but any review of the book would be incomplete without addressing it.  First, the novel is much better than the film.  I love the film, it is one of my all-time favorites, but there is so much in the novel that just can't be expressed visually, including the mental illnesses of the inmates.  This could be why the focus of the film shifts away from Bromden toward McMurphy.  It would be difficult, if not impossible, to effectively show the inner dialogue and conflict of the Chief.  Randle is extroverted; Bromden is introverted.  One makes for decidedly better viewing on film.  Finally, a minor gripe.  Because I'd seen the film (several times) before reading the book, I had mental images of the film characters in my head while reading.  For the most part, this didn't really bother me, but the descriptions of the characters don't necessarily match the film depictions.  Especially, in the case of McMurphy.  Great as Jack Nicholson is, he doesn't really look like Randle Patrick McMurphy.

Overall, it was an amazing book.  One of the best I've ever read.  Though it's a short book, it packs in so much that it took me a while after finishing it to process it all.  I just set down the book and sat where I was, thinking.

10 out of 10.

Book 38: The Epic of Gilgamesh by Anonymous

This will be the oldest book that I've read so far.  It was first written in ancient Mesopotamia sometime between 2000 and 1800 BC.  That makes it around 4,000 years old.  It was written in cuneiform script on clay tablets, some of which have been badly damaged in the intervening years.  Through painstaking efforts the tablets have been pieced together, cross-referenced with other tablets telling the same story, transliterated, translated and made mostly whole.  I've seen references to this epic in several other pieces of literature and I'm quite interested to read it first hand.

REVIEW:  I find that I still love reading classic literature.  Anything that transcends the ages comes across as deeply human.  I also find them very entertaining.  People get the idea that the Classics are all very prim and proper, but anything older than the Victorian era is really very far from proper.  There is a lot of sex, drinking and violence in any of the ancient works and this one is no exception.

The story follows the adventures of Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu as the cause trouble throughout ancient Mesopotamia.  Enkidu was originally a wild-man who lived with the animals until he was seduced by a prostitute.  They had sex for 7 days and then she told him that he should enter the world of men.  Enticed by his new friend and the other luxuries of the ancient world, beer, bread, etc. Enkidu begins living as a human being.  He meets Gilgamesh for the first time as his future friend is intending on enforcing his right of prima nocta at a village wedding.  Enkidu prevents him and fights him.  After the fight they become fast friends and set off together on many adventures.

One of the bigger surprises to me was the story of the Deluge late in the narrative.  This story is a direct ancestor of Noah's flood from the Judeo-Christian mythologies.  In the Gilgamesh Deluge a man named Utnapishtim is ordered by the gods to built a boat.  On that boat he is told to load his family and the "seeds of all the animals".  After this is done great rains build up and flood the world.  He is afloat for 6 days and then lands at the peak of Mt. Nisir.  Utnapishtim then sends out birds to see if the flood is receding.  The first few fails to find land and return to the ark but, eventually, he sends out a raven who does not return, implying that it has found land elsewhere.  The similarities, I assume, are obvious.  Considering that ancient Mesopotamia contained the same lands as the middle-east today, I suppose it's not surprising that there would be similar myths from both traditions.

The Epic of Gilgamesh was a very entertaining read and I would highly recommend it to anyone.  The version that I read was translated from the original tablets by the author and included a lot of information about how it was put together and where missing information was found and added.  I really can't think of any negative aspect of the book except, maybe, that some of the passages were somewhat repetitive.  Though, honestly, I felt that the repetitions added a mystical quality to the narrative, so I didn't mind it.

10 out of 10.

Book 37: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Last time I read Jane Austen it was the last book she wrote, Persuasion.  This time it's the first she wrote, Northanger Abbey.  I've heard that, like Persuasion, it's not as polished as her "big" novels, but I'm interested to see how it plays out.  It's making me a bit sad that I only have 2 more Austen novels to read.  Maybe I'll try to drag it out a bit.

At 256 pages it's going to by tough to drag it out... that's only 37 pages per day.

REVIEW:  This book was a very pleasant surprise for me.  I've read almost all of Jane Austen's novels now and just have left some of her minor works.  They are all supposed to be either early works, like this one, or unfinished works that were posthumously edited together.  Either way, they are shorter, unpolished novels that may not hold up to her master works.

However, Northanger Abbey turned out of be one of my favorites!  This is the first novel that Jane Austen wrote, though not the first published.  As such, it is a little raw in places but it does not suffer for it. What really surprised me, though, is that it was so funny!  The main character in the book, Catherine, is 17 years old and really comes off as young and naive.  She jumps to conclusions constantly, usually way off-base, and gets herself into embarrassing situations because of it.  The narration is also quite witty and addresses the reader directly in many places.  Because of this, the novel has a much more intimate feel to it, as though Austen is telling you the story personally.

As usual, reading Austen is always a pleasure.  She, and therefore her characters, are smart, funny, witty and complex.  I would highly recommend this novel to anyone that has enjoyed her other works, and would even recommend it to others who have not.  I'm going to place it squarely in my top three of her works, right behind Pride and Prejudice and Emma.

9 out of 10.

Book 36: Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn

What's this?  A Star Wars book?  Yes, I felt it was time for a bit of fluff.  I like to read a few of these kinds of books now and then just for fun.  The series (this is the second book) starts about 5 years after The Return of the Jedi and continues the story from there.  Other than the original films, these are the best Star Wars stories I know of.  Instead of the prequel trilogy, Lucas should have filmed these.  I've read this set a long time ago and wanted to re-read them.  Before my little project here started I read the novelization of the prequel movies, the original movies and these seemed like the logical place to go from there.

At 440 pages it's only 63 pages per day.  Shouldn't really be a problem.


REVIEW:

This is the second of the Thrawn trilogy of Star Wars books.  It picks up where the last left off.  Leia and Chewbacca are on a mission to try to recruit a mysterious species for the New Republic while Luke, Han and Lando are searching for a long lost fleet of starships that could turn the course of the conflict between them and the remnants of the Empire.

The best part of these books are the characters.  Zahn writes the heroes exactly as you remember them from the movies.  Their personalities fit perfectly.  His new characters, especially his villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, are well fleshed-out and believable with realistic personalities and motives.  Thrawn as a villain is way above what you would expect from a Star Wars novel.  He is well-cultured, subtle, intelligent and devious.  There are plenty of times when the heroes are one step ahead of him, but many other moments that he outwits them.

There are plenty of plots and counterplots to weave, on both sides, in this book.  It reads as a kind of treasure hunt.  Both sides are looking for the same thing, the Dark Force, a fleet of 200 powerful dreadnoughts, and they bounce around the galaxy following leads and false-leads.  As the end of the book approaches it turns into a race, the victor of which may tilt the balance of power in their favor.

Another thing that I particularly like is the level of detail included in Zahn's universe.  Zahn describes things like spacecraft controls, weapons effects and even Luke's Jedi powers in very believable and engaging ways.  It makes the experience much more immersive when these details are done right.

Overall, the book is a lot of fun.  The characters are accurate and familiar, the villain is sufficiently devious and challenging and the action is non-stop.  If they would make this trilogy into movies it would be many times better than Episodes 1-3.

9 out of 10.

Book 35: A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

I'm back on schedule now and ready to get back into this series.  I nearly burned myself out on it when I read the first four books in one month.  At around a thousand pages each, that was a bit much.  I'm eager to read this one because the last one felt a bit like half a book.  The author, instead of showing half the story for all the characters, decided to show all the story for half the characters.  Unfortunately, the characters that I really enjoyed were, for the most part, absent from the last book.  This one should show the events surrounding those missing characters and, hopefully, advance the plot a bit further.  I know that he plans at least 2 more books in this series, so I'm not expecting a resolution, but we'll see where he goes with it.

1040 pages means about 150 pages per day, quite a lot.

REVIEW:  As I mentioned before, the previous book in this series, A Feast for Crows, followed the stories for most of the characters in the Seven Kingdoms.  This book follows the stories of the remaining characters, most of them either at The Wall or across the Narrow Sea in the Free Cities.  This was good for me because the characters that this book focused on happen to be some of my favorites.  Tyrion, Jon Snow, Daenerys and Arya were all there and it was good to catch up with them.  What look to be some momentous changes are also beginning in this book.  Jon Snow has taken charge and is putting that authority to use and Daenerys’ dragons are finally starting to show their power.  Once Martin has brought the narratives int his book up to the time of those in the previous book he starts to show us how some of them may eventually tie together.  It’s just a tease, but it’s definitely starting to look like something more than just a lot of random character plots.

Unfortunately, his writing style has not much improved.  More than anything, it seems like he just needs  a more assertive editor.  He has a tendency to use repetitive descriptive phrases such as the dreaded “useless as nipples on a breastplate.”  He also has entire chapters of questionable relevance.  It’s admirable that he’d want to flesh out his side characters and their motives but, ultimately, it doesn’t matter.  It just serves to detract from the real action.  These overelaborations and the distractions of skipping around so much between chapters drag the plot to a snail’s pace.  He reminds me of Robert Jordan, the writer of the Wheel of Time series.  Jordan would spend an entire 800-900 page book moving an army from one city to the next with the only action at the very end.  Which, of course, is another problem here. Because this is the middle of the series, there is no resolution to any of the plot-lines.  Martin's series is not like Jordan's where there is a fight with one of the "little bad guys" at the end of each book.  It is the middle of a single, very long narrative.  Like chapter 40 through 70 of some 20,000 page epic.

Overall, the book is slowpaced and meandering, though there is still a sense that, somewhere in the future, the many, many threads that Martin has woven will come together to form a whole.  I can't say that the series is my favorite of all time, but it is still in the top ten and I will continue to read the sequels when they are released, if only to see where all this is leading.

7 out of 10.

Book 34: The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg

As a former linguistics student, I still have a lasting love of languages.  English, I think, is one of the most interesting languages, though it's difficult to see sometimes, as we're all native speakers here in the U.S.  But even here, people are mystified by the strangeness of the language.  People ask themselves, why do we pronounce this set of letters one way in this word, but in another word it's pronounced differently.  Well, a lot of the inconsistency and seeming randomness comes from the strange and turbulent history of English.  This book traces that history in a novel fashion, that of a biography of the language itself.  I'm unsure how successful this approach will be, but I couldn't resist the title when I first heard of it.  At 299 pages, it shouldn't be too hard to finish at around 43 pages per day.

REVIEW:  This book definitely delivered what I expected of it.  The author, Bragg, traces the history of the language with each chapter outlining one significant stage in the evolution of English.  He shows Alfred the Great, defeating the Danes and unifying England, the revolt against the Church and Latin by William Tyndale and his English Bible, the rise of English literature with Chaucer and Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson writing his dictionary but, overall, his main character is the language itself.  There were multiple points where English could have simply gone extinct.  When the Danes invaded England they nearly wiped out the English speaking natives, when the Normans invaded they imposed their French language on the land, but it was the "deep obstinacy" and "astonishing flexibility" that enabled the language to survive and eventually thrive.

It is interesting to see the course of a language all at once.  And it's difficult to think of another language with a similar history to English.  Beginning with the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England, who were themselves invaded by the Vikings and Normans, then the consolidation of British English and then outward to America, India, Australia, the West Indies and beyond.  Now, some 1,500 years later the language is spoken by some 1 billion people, worldwide and is established as the modern Lingua Franca.  And it is the amazing ability of English to adapt, to repair and reinvent itself that seems to have made it possible.

As a linguist, I've always been fascinated with our aberrant language and the reasons that it makes so little sense to non-speakers and learning speakers.  We follow grammatical rules that we hardly understand; We have words that are pronounced nothing like their spelling; We have multiple sets of rules for conjugating verbs, etc.  It is illuminating to see the tumultuous history of the language, not to see that there really is an underlying logic to these things, but to see that there are good reasons that it makes so little sense.  The book did get a little dry in places, after all, it is historical linguistics in essence, but Bragg does a commendable job of making it all make sense as a single narrative.

7 out of 10