Book-a-holic

Sooo I meant to make this one last, but I found it so easy to read after the density of The Ambas- sadors that I read it in a few days.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte was great for me for a couple of reasons, but first I'll explain the way it pissed me off. I'm used to this type of novel. I know when I peel back the front cover I'm in for about 400+ pages of "Oh I love him/her but she/he is too rich/poor/religious/drunk/far away," or the same number of pages of Ben-Stiller-style mishaps and painfully drawn out misunderstandings. It doesn't bother me that much, and I'm willing to deal with it in exchange for the elevated writing style and the overarching societal and historical themes, along with the fact that you can simply analyze the hell out of most of these amazing novels and never seem to find the end of it. I'm ready, in other words, to deal with the troubled love plot. When I began the novel, I expected this. So when I got about 100 pages into it, and the love plot seemed almost neatly resolved, I was thrilled. Maybe, just maybe, the love plot would be a trouble-free one and there would be a little bit more action to the novel. Maybe this novel would lead me into new territory.

No. No, no, no. Rather than that, Bronte teased me with a seemingly tidy resolution and then SLAMMED me with a 300 page journal, written twenty years earlier by one of the characters. Oooooooooh, I was mad. But once I got over that, I did find that it was a good novel. First of all, it had a lot of characters. And it had a lot of types of characters, from drunkards, liars, hussies, and rakes to lords, ladies, vicars and those sorts. And they were good characters. They were human, with their failings and inconsistencies and confusion and hesitation. There were a couple of highly idealized characters, but for the most part they were presented in a wonderfully rounded way. The second thing that I loved about the novel was that since I just read Jane Eyre, by Anne Bronte's sister Charlotte, I got to have fun picking out different phrases that they both used, or situations that both of their characters go through. The similarities and differences of novels produced in one household go to show a lot about the personalities of the sisters. I may read Wuthering Heights again soon, so I can compare the three sisters side-by-side.

Oh, and in case anybody besides me cares, I'm up to novel #6. I don't think I've been ahead of schedule on anything before!

Coming soon: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Wait. What?

So I'm writing this entry after finishing The Ambassadors by Henry James. It was...different. I guess I've got that terrible Western reliance on action-filled plots, so I found it quite difficult to decipher the novel. Once I was used to James's writing style I was more capable of following the storyline, but since the beginning of the book was quite confusing, I had to go back from about page 100 and start over again.
This book gave me a really great WTF moment right in the middle. All along I thought the story was from the point of view of Strether, looking at the events in Chad's life. Was I ever wrong! It was a book about Strether, and how he responds to the changes in his life (some of which are caused by Chad, but not the same thing at all).

Though the novel was difficult and confusing at times, especially because of the characters' tendency to talk around things instead of about them, I found it really fulfilling to decipher and probe. I'd recommend this novel to people who have been seriously injured and have nothing to do, people who need to learn how to avoid talking about what they're really talking about and to people who love literature. Because us lit junkies are addicted to the pain of being pages away from the part of the novel where it all comes together. (Though for the record, in The Ambassadors, that doesn't happen.)

coming soon: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Catch-up

Ok. I found this great challenge at http://www.read52booksin52weeks.com/. It's pretty straightforward.

My original goal for 2010 was to keep an accurate book journal, but this seems like a little bit more fun. I do have a few books under my belt so far this year, however, so I'll lead in with those. Just quick reviews of course, because I'm onto bigger and better things.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

It was my first book of the year. I went to the mall around the 1st, and saw it at Chapters. I had been meaning to buy it forever, and it happened to hop out at me from the shelf on a day that I had money with me. It was a feel-good story about an old man who dies after living his less-than-exciting life, only to find out that there were lives that he touched unawares. A very quick read, but a pleasant one.

World War Z by Max Brooks

I have wanted this book since before it was written. I had two copies of the zombie survival guide, but I NEEDED to read more. Brooks's next zombie tome did not disappoint. It takes on the fictional "Great Panic" and zombie wars through the eyes of different witnesses to its buildup, epidemic and near-elimination. The war-correspondent-style-writing allowed me the suspension of my disbelief long enough to lose myself in a silly and thoroughly enjoyable read.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Theme? Yeah! I felt like buying a few sillier books than I normally read. Note that all books mentioned so far came from one Chapters visit. So I'm a little bit obsessed. There's really not that much zombie stuff out and about. As an avid fan of classic literature, ninjas and zombies, I expected this book to sweep me off of my feet. Completely. The negative reviews I read before purchase could not sway me. Let's just say that although it was intended to be tacky and silly, I really felt that it could have been done better. The dialogue is altered very slightly to add in the extra elements, and much is left out that is unnecessary to the funny zombie plot. I really wish that it had been condensed to short-story form. It was simply not a funny enough gag to pull for an entire novel. And remember, I say this with the deepest love for all things zombie.

I still have Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters on the bookshelf, waiting until I read the original.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

This. Book. Is. God-like. It's got everything (except zombies and ninjas). This is a re-read, finished earlier this week. I read it last summer, and then it was assigned in my British Novel class. I was excited to go through it again, especially since I had the luxury of not having to focus on the plot. This time around, I had a lot of fun analyzing as I read. The book's gothic, romantic, economic and sociological themes win it over for a huge audience, even for people who are not big fans of classic literature (well, I guess I can't say that, because I live for the stuff. I take it back). It's a fantastic novel. Read it.

Coming soon: The Ambassadors by Henry James, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte