Book 29: Solar by Ian McEwan

I really like Ian McEwan's books, though they are, more often than not, quite depressing.  It used to be that he wrote strange little macabre tales where something was off about the lives of his chraracters (children living alone in their house after burying their parents in the backyard comes to mind).  But lately, he's been writing beautiful books with characters that you come to love, then he stabs you in the heart with a tragic twist near the end.  You may love the characters and hope to see them end up happy, but you know they won't.  All that said, I love his writing and am looking forward to this book.

It's got 287 pages, so that's 41 pages per day... although I borrowed this one from the library a couple weeks ago and only have 5 days to finish it... so that's 58 pages per day.

REVIEW: Let me say straight away that I really enjoyed this book.  It his several elements that were bound to grab me.  The main character, Michael Beard, is a theoretical physicist who, a couple of decades ago, won the Nobel Prize for his work with light establishing something called the Beard-Einstein Conflation (which McEwan wisely does not explain).  Now, however, his marriage is in decline and his career has stagnated as he continues to coast along on his successes as a young man.

Ian McEwan's writing is, as always, completely engrossing.  I literally missed my bus stop no fewer than 3 times while reading on my way home from work.  He has a way of writing characters that is completely believable and you find yourself immersed in their lives.  It helped that he did his homework on this book, which helped to write a very convincing scientist-turned-scientific administrator, without making him a stereotype.

As I mentioned in the introduction to this book, McEwan typically has a tragic twist in his books.  One would think that this would get formulaic and predictable, but he has a way of introducing these twists that, while you may expect them, you are always surprised by them.  I don't want to give away the plot in this review, but I will say that, near the end of the book, I knew something was going to happen, but he gave such a complex range of things that could happen that I didn't know which it would be.  That sounds confusing; suffice it to say that Ian McEwan is an excellent writer and, despite the fact that you may suspect that his plot will include a tragic twist or surprising turn, you won't see it coming until it has already happened.

Overall, and as usual, I really liked reading McEwan's latest book.  It wasn't one of his best and the ending was a little lacking, in my opinion, but it was expertly written, completely engrossing and even comic, in a grim sort of way.  8 out of 10.

Book 28: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

I have to admit, I'm not really looking forward to this one.  I'm mostly reading American Literature to see what I missed in high school and some of it I have found to be very enjoyable.  Ernest Hemingway is still one of my favorite authors.  But, based on the last Faulkner novel that I read, I'm expecting this one to be a downer.  The title doesn't give me much hope of a happy ending either.  I am going to stick with it anyway, though.

Only 261 pages in this one so it should take long to get a verdict.  That's less than 40 pages per day, if anyone is counting.

REVIEW:  Well, Faulkner is still not my favorite American author but it wasn't too bad.  The novel revolves around the death of Addie Bundren, the matriarch of a poor, southern family.  The event and it's aftermath is seen from the point of view of several people who are associated with the events and jumps from person to person with each chapter.

The chief complaint that I have about American literature, principally early 20th century American literature, is it's tendency to devolve into a kind of suffocating tragedy of desperate poverty.  This one is not much different as the surviving family continue to make bad decision after bad decision as terrible luck strikes at every turn.

The writing is interesting, however.  Faulkner tends to write in a stream-of-consciousness style and uses a colloquial voice for his characters.  He is able to give each of his characters a unique style and you can really tell who is narrating by the way they speak.  The story is also interesting and it moves at a nice pace, though it's horribly depressing and a bit frustrating due the choices of the characters.

Overall, this has not done much to improve my impression of American Literature in general.  It had a good story and great writing style but unlikeable characters and a heavy mood.  I appreciate that it's an important piece of literature but it wasn't something I enjoyed very much.  6 out of 10.

Book 27: The Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles

It's time to get back to the classics.  I've read a lot of old Greek and Roman classics, including Oedipus Rex, but I don't remember reading all three pieces.  I actually enjoy reading ancient Greek works.  I like how the characters are still very relatable, very human.  From what I remember of Oedipus, it's more like a Shakespeare play than something by Plato or Aristotle and was very gripping throughout.

My copy is 216 pages, which gives a very easy 31 pages per day.  I may finish this one early.

REVIEW: As you may or may not know, I’m a big fan of Ancient Greek literature.  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I really enjoyed this book.  To me, the fact that an author can successfully convey emotion though he’s writing in a different country and culture, 2,500 years ago, shows something definingly human.  Anything that can cross that divide must be universal amongst all people.

The Oedipus Trilogy consists of three plays, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone.  The first play portrays the events that Oedipus is famous for: the killing of his father and marrying and having children with his mother.  Though most people are familiar with this plot, I have to wonder how many have actually read the story and realized it’s subtleness.  On the surface, taken literally, Oedipus’ acts are unthinkable, even villainous.  But Oedipus didn’t realize what he was doing at the time.  He didn’t know that it was his father he killed (in self-defense, no less) and he didn’t know that it was his mother he was marrying when he freed Thebes and took her for his queen.  Informed by prophecy, Oedipus goes looking for the wretch who would commit such sins only to find that it is himself.

The second play, Oedipus at Colonus, shows Oedipus as he arrives at Athens.  He is now blinded and beggared led and assisted by his daughters Antigone and Ismene.  Oedipus is befriend by the king of Athens, Theseus and taken under his protection.  Confronted by his son, Polyneices who is at war with his brother Eteocles, Oedipus refuses to return to Thebes and, after a rescue from Theseus, he dies at Colonus, just outside Athens.

The third play follows Oedipus’ daughter, Antigone after she has returned to Thebes.  Her brothers have killed each other and Thebes is now ruled by Creon, her uncle.  Because of the war that Polyneices waged against Thebes, Creon has declared him a traitor and refused him burial rites.  Antigone, as Polyneices’ sister, performs the rites anyway and is arrested.  The whole trilogy basically tells of the downfall of Oedipus and his relations.

The series as a whole inspire a wide range of feeling, from disbelief to revulsion to compassion.  Oedipus falls from a King to a blind beggar, but regains some of his power through justice and prophecy.  I think that anyone who takes the time to read through the myth of Oedipus will find him a far more sympathetic character and far from the deviate implied by a cursory reading of the main plot.  In this, as in most literature, the details make the story.

9 out of 10

Book 26: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Well, I'm back around to Jane Austen.  I've read all but three of her novels so far: Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan and this one, Persuasion.  I have to admit that I really don't know anything about this book so we'll have to see how it goes.  I'm still a big fan of Jane Austen's writing, however, so I assume it will be pretty good.

Only 272 pages, so around 40 pages per day.  Piece of cake!

REVIEW:  This book is now one of my new favorites.  It’s not as good as Pride and Prejudice or even Emma, but even the third best book by Jane Austen is better than most people’s best books. 

The story takes place from the point of view of Anne Elliot, the middle daughter of a baronet, Sir Walter Elliot.  Her mother is dead, her father and sister are vain and selfish and her younger sister is already married and, therefore, head of her own little household, though that doesn’t keep her from meddling in everyone else’s lives.  Anne is the standard refined, smart heroine of Austen’s novels, but she’s unappreciated.  Her good judgment is often disregarded though everyone relies on her dependibility. 

She is now 27, practically a spinster in Austen’s world, though eight years earlier she was engaged to a yound naval officer, Frederick Wentworth.  She loved him dearly, but was persuaded to break off the engagement by her family and friends due to his lack of status and fortune.  Now, eight years later, Captain Wentworth has returned and she must learn to adjust to his contant presence.

While Anne is unassuming, she is not meek, like Fanny in Mansfield Park. She is, therefore, a much more interesting character.  She does have opinions and advice even if they are disregarded.  While she was meek enough to be persuaded earlier against her desires, she is now older and more independent.  Overall, she’s the opposite of most of Austen’s heroines, choosing a self-made commoner over the aristocratic heroes of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. 

The story felt a little rough in spots and very hurried at the end, but as this was the last book written by Ms. Austen, in fact, written on her deathbed, it didn’t get the usual amount of revision, editing and polishing that most of her novels did.  As such, it’s simpler, more direct story but, I feel, it comes across as more realistic and moving.

Overall, I really liked this book – 9 out of 10.

Book 25: Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov

Back to some good, old-school sci-fi.  This is the second of the Foundation series and I really enjoyed the first.  This one is supposed to be about the meeting between the Foundation and the old Galactic Empire.  For being such a famous series (in sci-fi circles, at least) I know very little about these books.

What I do know is that it's only 272 pages.  So that's a very easy 40 pages per day.

REVIEW:  As mentioned, this is the second volume of the series and I found it to be quite a bit weaker than the first.  Part of the concept of the series is that the founder of the Foundation predicted, mathematically, the fall of the Galactic Empire and, to forestall some of the worst of the resulting chaos, established the Foundation to harbor the most advanced of the Empire's technology and plant a seed to rebuild society at an accelerated rate.

Because the founder has predicted, scientifically, the future path that his new society will take, it just remains for events to unfold and for the Foundation to grow and overcome challenges that present themselves.  This leads to a bit of a problem though, as far as a story goes.  Because the future has been decided the actions the Foundation takes and the results of those actions start to feel like destiny and there is no real need to do anything as a feeling of "it will all work out in the end" pervades.  Even the characters in the book seem to feel this way and it becomes a little boring.

Now it could be that the first half of the book is written this way to set things up for the second half, which picks up the pace considerably.  But, even given this, you're still stuck with a boring half-a-book.  For some reason, Asimov even has the climax of the first part of the book take place off-screen.  There is a big conflict building but, just as it is about to unfold, you see what happens... from the point of view of some characters that happen to be half a galaxy away... watching it on the news.  No spaceship battles, no planetary invasions, just a ticker telling what happened.

The second half was much more interesting and seemed to take things in a different direction, so that kept things interesting, and it seems to lead directly to the third book in the series.  So, I suppose I'll continue on with the story for one more book.  Overall, though, this one was significantly less interesting than the first book:  6 out of 10.

Book 24: The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

I'm back around to non-fiction again and this time we're going for some science.  The Fabric of the Cosmos is an exploration of the basics of the universe, basically what is it?  Through theoretical physics, cosmology and string theory he attempts to define the nature of spacetime.  If you know anything about me you'd know this is right up my alley.

It's 493 pages but 536 pages including the more detailed Notes section, which I'll probably read.  So that makes about 80 pages per day.

REVIEW:  Brian Greene does a nice job of laying down the basics in this book.  He starts with explaining the history of our knowledge of space.  Meaning: what is space?  From there he goes through more of the big questions: what is time?  How did the universe begin?  How will it end?  What makes up the fundamental particles and forces in our universe?

I've read enough of these kinds of books to have basic understanding of these concepts already and my own studies have fleshed those concepts out pretty thoroughly.  But Greene does an excellent job of describing all of these difficult ideas.  He explains things in a very understandably way and, if you desire, there is a "notes" section at the end which explains things in more depth for the mathematically and scientifically inclined reader.  He also does a good job of explaining that most of these concepts are just theories, hypotheses, really.  At the fundamental level, we still don't know most of the answers to the basic questions.

Reading through another science book, I typically judge them by whether or not I learn anything from them.  This book had a couple of large sections that I came away from feeling that I understood things better than before.  Entropy was a big one.  There was a large section on time and whether or not it can be shown to have an "arrow", a direction, from a scientific point of view.  I had a basic understanding of these ideas, but his explanations and the math in the notes section, really taught me something.

There was some rehashing; basic, history-of-science stuff at the beginning.  But he quickly moved on to more of the latest findings and theories, so it never really bogged down.  I found this book quite an interesting read... those without a love of science, physics and/or astronomy may not enjoy it quite as much.  8 out of 10.

Book 23: Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

My schedule was slipping for a couple weeks, but we’re back on now.  Next up is Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco.  It’s a bit of a mystery/conspiracy theory novel from what I understand, as well as historical fiction.  I really enjoyed The Name of the Rose when I read it a number of years ago, but wasn’t as impressed with some of Eco’s more recent novels.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Eco’s writing and all of his books that I’ve read have been good, but I’m hoping that this is a great one.

623 pages means 89 pages per day.

REVIEW:  This is the third Templar conspiracy book that I've read.  The first was Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln which was very fun and very interesting.  The second one was Dan Brown's  The Da Vinci Code which was a blatant rip-off of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and basically just dramatized the book.  This one takes on the same subject material, basically, but adds a new twist.  

Eco is a phenomenal writer, his prose is very dense and he tends to incorporate tons and tons of historical material into his writing.  There are two basic types of chapters in the book.  One part tells the story of the protagonists and those are quick and interesting.  There is lots of drama and things happen quickly.  The second type is building the historical conspiracy of the Templars and, because it's a world-encompassing conspiracy, it tends to get very, very arcane.  I wouldn't say that you could just skim through the historical material either, because he tends to build on it from chapter to chapter and he refers back to different groups constantly.  

The other thing about this book is that he uses a lot of foreign languages.  The main characters are obviously well versed in Latin and French at the least and a smattering of other languages when necessary.  With my linguistic background it wasn't much of a problem, but if you do not know at least Latin and French you may need a dictionary, or Google Translate.  I don't think that there was anything critical that wasn't in English, but you might miss some of the flavor.

All in all, I found this to be a very enjoyable read.  I still prefer Eco's The Name of the Rose but this is probably my second favorite of his novels.  It did get a little arcane with all the occult knowledge that he included, but that knowledge is critical to the plot and really is the point of the book so it's something you have to wade through to really appreciate whole product Eco presents at the end.

Rating: 8 out of 10.