Shakespeare Reading Month: A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream was the first Shakespeare play I ever taught, and even though I don't teach it anymore, I still have quite the soft spot for it. I loved being able to teach a comedy, especially one that my students could relate to so well (liking someone your parents don't approve of, liking someone who doesn't like you back, liking someone who has a donkey's head...wait a minute...). For a while I practically had the play memorized (that's what happens when you listen to it five times a day for a period of several weeks), and upon revisiting it in the form of the excellent Arkangel audio production, I found it to be just as delightful as I remembered.

If I could choose one single line to sum about this play, it would be Lysander's line from early in Act 1: "The course of true love never did run smooth." Ever. Especially not in this play. There are five main couples that the play focuses on: Theseus and Hippolyta are about to get married, and they sort of present the frame for the rest of the story; Theseus is the one who has to decide Hermia's fate. Hermia and Lysander are in love, but Egeus, Hermia's father, for some reason that is never explained to the audience, wants Hermia to marry Demetrius (even though it is EXTREMELY obvious that Lysander is the better guy). Demetrius is sort of a jerk because he was promised to Helena, Hermia's best friend, but one look at Hermia made him dump Helena and pursue Hermia instead. Meanwhile, Helena is still desperately (and embarrassingly) in love with Demetrius.

Off in fairyland (really!), Oberon and Titania are fighting. The premise of the fight is very childish: Oberon wants something he can't have, and the ensuing chaos only makes Titania more and more (rightly so) angry. All of the couples eventually converge upon the forest, get confused (with some help from a handy love potion that Oberon happens to have), get angry, but, in the end, make up and live happily ever after.

The genius in this play (aside from the chaos and the zingers and the Rude Mechanicals, country bumpkins who try to perform a tragedy that ends up being the funniest play in the history of Athens) is how Shakespeare manages to take a serious look at what love is by using humor and comedy. Is love always difficult? Can you ever know if love is true? Can even the truest love be overcome? Shakespeare examines all of these things and comes up with very satisfying conclusions. This is one of Shakespeare's more poetic plays (as in there is a lot of closed form poetry happening, especially rhymed poetry when Oberon, Titania, or one of the other magical creatures is speaking), and that poetic quality lends itself nicely to Shakespeare's musings about love.

Tris and Izzie: Oh, I'll Be Honest...

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley

I'll admit two things: I was pretty excited when I saw Tris & Izzie, by Mette Ivie Harrison listed on NetGalley; I had seen it mentioned on both Angie's and Steph's blogs and found the cover just breathtaking. Secondly, I am not familiar with the fairy tale Tristan and Isolde, but I do know of the opera story, and I saw the surprisingly un-terrible movie from a few years agao.

All that being said, I was pretty disappointed. Some of that may be because I don't know the fairy tale, but the weaknesses in the plot and writing and characters went far beyond any lack of knowledge of the original on my part. I was expecting a story of star-crossed lovers who loved and lost, but I got a poorly structured, ridiculously magical, over-the-top (and not in a good way) adventure story instead.

Izzie has everything she wants: a great best friend, a super popular boyfriend, and a mom who does her best to provide for her and love her in the wake of her father's death when she was five. Things start to change (quite quickly) when Tris starts to hang out with Izzie's boyfriend. Turns out Izzie and Tris are destined to love each other, fight evil, and use their magical powers together to slay Gurmun, the demonic, seemingly (but not really) immortal serpent terrorizing the magical kingdom of Curvenal.

As I read, I kept thinking about Harry Potter. I don't know if this was intentional on Harrison's part or not, but everything from Izzie not knowing of her magic right away to the way she decides to sacrifice herself and the whole process she goes through to come to that decision came across as watered down Potter magic. Add to this the fact that none of the major plot developments have a sense of inevitability or reason for happening, and the story really falls flat.

What probably drove me the most crazy about this book, however, was the characterization of Izzie, Tris, Mark (Izzie's boyfriend at the beginning), and Branna (Izzie's best friend). None of these characters are terribly compelling and much as they try, none of them are dynamic either in the literary sense (they change and grow) or the personaltiy sense (you care and want to know what happens to them). Reading the book was like watching cardboard cut-outs being moved around a stage. They lacked depth and any sort of logic or reasoning behind their interactions with each other: Izzie and Tris fall in love and it's not because of the love potion? why? Mark feels very little about Izzie breaking up with him despite supposedly loving her deeply? why? Izzie has no problem with Mark and Branna getting together about 30 seconds after she breaks up with Mark? why? Mark easily and completely falls in love with Branna 30 seconds after Izzie breaks up with him? why?

There was one thing that I liked about this book: the cover. It is beautiful and haunting but doesn't really give an accurate impression of what the book will really be about (and it helped contribute to my confusion about why there was a giant evil serpent in a story that I thought was about a pre-Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet). Sadly, the story didn't live up to its gorgeous cover.


*Tris & Izzie will be released October 11, 2011*

Rabbits, Rabbits, Everywhere: Of Mice and Men

So far in my reading life, Steinbeck has been something of a mixed bag for me. I HATED "The Pearl," which was my first encounter with him, but that could very well be because my eighth grade English teacher made us read it three or four times over the course of studying it, which I did because I was a good little rule-follower. Again, this loathing could be misplaced and not Steinbeck's fault, but I do so detest "The Pearl." But I digress. My second encounter with Steinbeck was much better. The Grapes of Wrath was assigned as summer reading before my senior year of high school. At that point, I had a terrible track record with summer reading (despite being a rule-follower), probably because I was too busy reading what I WANTED to read during the summer rather than all the assigned reading which I diligently, and almost religiously, read during the school year. Imagine my surprise, then, when The Grapes of Wrath became not only the first summer reading book I ever actually finished but also was a book I rather enjoyed despite it coming from the same author who produced the oh-so-reprehensible "The Pearl." A while back (possibly years? my, time does fly), my book club read East of Eden. I didn't know quite how I felt about the novel and decided to reserve judgment until I could read it again over a shorter period of time.

When the Classics Circuit announced a Steinbeck tour, I knew I had to participate. While contemplating what book to choose, I will admit to being heavily influenced in my selection by Lost; ultimately I chose Of Mice and Men because of Lost (if you want to know how Lost is connected to the novel, you can go here. But be warned: there are spoilers for the novel and, depending on how you see it, the show itself.).


If Of Mice and Men is about anything, it is about dreams. Specifically, it is about the dream that George and Lennie have to own their own piece of land that they can work, control, and belong to. This dream of owning their own farm is really a thinly veiled desire for home and belonging, and it is their dream as a representation of home and belonging that becomes so appealing to other characters in the novel (especially Candy, an old, soon-to-lose-his-usefullness farmhand and Crooks, the ostracized Black stable hand). In typical Steinbeck fashion, however, this dream is not easily achieved, and many, many obstacles stand in the way of George and Lennie getting their farm.

Ironically, Lennie, who thinks about and clings to this dream more than anyone else in the novel, himself is probably the biggest and most consistent obstacle to achieving the dream. He longs to have rabbits he can care for, he is constantly telling George how he can't wait to live off the "fatta the land," and he is very, very strong, but Lennie has the mind and understanding of a child and often finds himself in trouble without knowing why. George, for reasons left unrevealed to the reader. takes care of Lennie, tries to protect him, and, ultimately, shows him kindness and love, but even he can't keep Lennie from destroying the possibility of achieving their dream.

I was reminded of two other works of fiction while reading Of Mice and Men: The Heart is a Lonely Hunger, by Carson McCullers, and East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. George and Lennie's relationship made me think about John Singer's friendship with Spiros Antanopolos; there's not really much of a comparison there, but this friendship from McCullers' novel popped into my mind several times as I read Of Mice and Men. It was the character of Crooks that reminded me of East of Eden. Like he does with Lee in East of Eden, Steinbeck writes Crooks to directly contradict many of the racial stereotypes and prejudices that would have been prevalent in the 1930s. Both Lee (a Chinese man) and Crooks (a Black man) are atypical according to stereotype, and I wondered while reading about Crooks, as I did while reading about Lee, what Steinbeck was trying to do with these two characters. I'd love to read more about it, so if you know of some resources, please let me know!

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel, which makes my Steinbeck experience more positive than negative or ambiguous. I think this would be a great introduction to Steinbeck (unlike "The Pearl"...okay, I'll stop complaining about "The Pearl" now): it showcases his writing style (there are some truly beautiful descriptions), it is set in California, a place he comes back to again and again, it deals with the struggling working American man, and many of the themes and ideas touched upon in the novel are expressed and fleshed out in Steinbeck's longer works.

Testament of Youth, Testament of Pain

Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death, —
Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland, —
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath, —
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
Shrapnel. We chorused when he sang aloft,
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, — knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.

--"The Next War," by Wilfred Owen

I have been listening to Benjamin Briton's War Requiem and had to pretty much stop everything to just listen when I heard these lyrics. Briton wrote War Requiem in memory of three friends who died in World War II, and he used many of Wilfred Owen's poems as the text for the requiem. Owen was a poet who wrote about his experiences in World War I, which, of course, is why I'm listening to Briton's Requiem.

I have been quite haunted by Testament of Youth. I've already mentioned how the memoir has set me off on a bit of a WWI fixation, but in all honesty it is more than just a desire to learn more about the War (although there is that as well); I want to understand what happened and see how in the world what Vera Brittain experienced could ever have occurred. In Hew Strachan's introduction to The First World War, he explains that in the purely statistical, economic, historical sense, there was no Lost Generation: populations were rebounding and those lost in the War and the Influenza Epidemic had, numerically, been replaced. But in the emotional, pyschological, and spiritual reality of post-War life, Strachan points out, there very much was a Lost Generation that left behind wounded, devasted lives who would have to reconcile themselves to living while bearing all they had lost.

Vera Brittain was one such life.

If ever there was someone unprepared to live the realities of war (not to mention modern war), it was Vera Brittain at the beginning of the War. Brittain grew up at the very end of the Victorian era, and Vicatorian ideas about propriety, manners, relationships, and a woman's place in the world were still very much in place in the provincial town where Brittain grew up. Her desire to study and go to Oxford baffled, confused, and even angered her parents, and she was left largely on her own to prepare for her exams, apply to Oxford, and navigate actually getting to Oxford. A bright, motivated spirit was not exactly in high demand in the future wives of Great Britain! Brittain was so sheltered as she was growing up that going to Oxford to live in a dorm was shocking and eye-opening, so the reader knows from the beginning that training as a VAD, nursing, and serving on the front will be a seemingly unbearable, horrible, and shocking experience for Brittain.

Given how hard Brittain worked and how important going to Oxford was to her, it is truly impressive that she gave up Oxford after her first year. Her brother, Edward, and soon-to-be fiancé, Roland, enlisted as soon as war was declared, and Brittain felt she must do something to help the war effort.

Brittain makes it very clear that she had no real desire to nurse; she volunteered because she needed to do something on the same scale as Edward and Roland. She also makes it very clear that these three, like thousands of others, felt a patriotic duty to their country and so gallantly, yet foolishly, joined the war effort with very little understanding of why the war was being fought and how their participation would affect the outcome of the war. This blind allegiance and youthful optimism are portrayed in a painful, poignant manner as Brittain details the story of her war experience. We know things will end badly, she knows things will end badly, yet her writing is so skillful that each battle, each letter, each waiting, each turn is painful and heartwrenching; we experience everything along with Brittain. There were moments I couldn't breathe because Brittain had so keenly portrayed her hope, her fear, her anger, and her mourning.

Brittain wrote her Testament almost seventeen years after the war ended, and I think her older, more mature understanding of the world (and perhaps even her ability to see the rumblings of another war on the horizon) serves her memoir well. Brittain very much condemns the War to End All Wars, and like Owen finds it despicable that men, including her men, fought "Death" for "men" and "flags" rather than "lives." Brittain became a pacifist as a result of her experiences in World War I, which is not terribly surprising. But she was a pacifist not just because she had seen the individual and personal destruction that war had brought; she also saw the historical and economical uselessness of war. Several years after the War ended, Brittain and her good friend Winifred Holtby actually toured the parts of Germany and France that were most affected by the War, and Brittain came to understand that this war had cost everyone, and though the Allies may have been named the victors, no one really won.

Brittain struggled for many years (which she documents in her memoir) to find purpose and to understand how her life could have any meaning without Edward, Roland, and other beloved friends she had lost. She details her darkest times and explains how alone she truly felt. Slowly, she starts to move on, and, eventually, contemplates a completely different kind of life with a man with whom she does not share the War (at least not in the same way that she shared the war with Edward, Roland, and others). Towards the end of her book, however, she finds some reconciliation with what had happened, at least in terms of herself:

"If the dead could come back, I wondered, what would they say to me? Roland [her fiancee]--you who wrote in wartime France of 'another stranger'--would you think me, because I marry him, forgetful and unfaithful? Edward [her brother], Victor, Geoffrey, would you have me only remember you, only dwell in those days that we shared so long ago--or would you wish my life to go on? In spite of the War, which destroyed so much hope, so much beauty, so much promise, life is still here to be lived; so long as I am in the world, how can I ignore the obligation to be part of it, cope with its problems, suffer claims and interruptions? The surge and swell of its movements, its changes, its tendencies, still mould me and the surviving remnant of my generation whether we wish it or not, and no one now living will ever understand so clearly as ourselves, whose lives have been darkened by the universal breakdown of reason in 1914, how completely the future of civilised humanity depends upon the success of our present halting endeavours to control our political and social passions, and to substitute for our destructive impulses the vitalising authority of constructive thought. To rescue mankind from that domination by the irrational which leads to war could surely be a more exultant fight than war itself, a fight capable of enlarging the souls of men and women with the same heightened consciousness of living, and uniting them in one dedicated community whose common purpose transcends the individual. Only the purpose itself would be different, for its achievement would mean, not death, but life.

To look forward, I concluded, and to have courage--the courage of adventure, of challenge, of initiation, as well as the courage of endurance--that was surely part of fidelity. The lover, the brother, the friends whom I had lost, had all in their different ways possessed this courage, and it would not be utterly wasted if only, through those who were left, it could influence the generation, still to be, and convince them that, so long as the spirit of man remained undefeatable, life was worth living and worth giving. If somehow I could make my contemporaries, and especially those who, like myself, had once lost heart, share this belief; if perhaps, too, I could have children, and pass on to them the desire for this courage and the impulse to redeem the tragic mistakes of the generation which gave them birth, then Roland and Edward and Victor and Geoffrey would not have died vainly after all. It was only the past that they had taken to their graves, and with them, although I should always remember, I must let it go. '...Under the sway / Of death the past's enormous disarray / Lies hushed and dark.' So Henley had written: and so, with my eyes on the future, I must now resolve."

Testament of Youth is so many things: it is a condemnation of the choices leading up to and continuing World War I, it is a plea for pacifism and alternative conflict resolution, it is an expression of grief and mourning, it is an example of healing, but most of all it is a labor of and testament to love: yes, Brittain mourns the men she lost in the War, but she also brings them to life, pays tribute to them, and records them so their memories may live on.

I owe a huge debt to Laura for bringing my attention to this book (you can check out her review of the book here). This is one of those books that changed my life, and I know it is a book that I will come back to again and again. As an American, my working knowledge of World War I was fairly vague (as I think is fairly typical for most Americans with only a high school understanding of World War I). The emphasis had always seemed to be on World War II, and the US doesn't have any sort of observed day of remembrance and acknowledgment for World War I, probably because the country became involved in the conflict rather late in the game. This book gave me new respect, appreciation, and feeling for all those who fought and sacrificed in World War I. Thanks to this book, you will not be forgotten.

Maggie Stiefvater Is Still Brilliant

After finishing Linger, I had no idea how I was going to make it a year before finding out what happened to Sam and Grace; ironically, I almost missed the release date for Forever because my brain was completely convinced that it came out at the end of July. Happily for me, my brain was wrong, and I was able to devour Forever a full two weeks earlier than I thought I would!

Like Shiver and Linger, Forever delivers another tale of love, sacrifice, and how to truly live life. The writing is just as achingly beautiful, and the use of poetry and song lyrics were pitch-perfect. Indeed, these stories would not be these stories without the songs and poems and flashes of art that imbue the writing so effortlessly. Good story is important, but I think the thing that will keep me coming back to these novels for a long time is the quality of the writing. They are so well-written and achingly reflective of the truth; this book was no exception in its ability to make me catch my breath and pause at a phrase, sentence, or passage so exquisite that it required time regardless of my urgent need to read, read, read to find out the rest of the story.

Just as Linger expanded the reader's focus from Sam and Grace to Sam, Grace, Isabel, and Cole, Forever expands its focus to center on the pack as a whole; and it is not just the pack as an abstract or a fact of Sam's past or a future responsibility for Cole: the pack is a very real factor in the present for both Sam and Grace once more. When the pack is threatened, it is not just the most important pieces of Sam's past that are threatened. Instead, it is Grace's (and by extension Sam's) future that is threatened as well. As Sam and Grace continue to struggle through these obstacles, their story widens to include Cole and Isabel. As I stated in my review of Linger, I didn't really care much about what happened between Cole and Isabel because I was so wrapped up in Sam and Grace's storyline. In Forever, however, I became very invested in Cole and Isabel and was so happy with they way they ended up by the end of the novel.

The end of the novel may be unsatisfying to some, but I really thought it was perfect. I know what I think happens beyond the end of the story (which Stiefvater left ambiguous), but the ending being happy or sad wasn't really, I think, the point. I think the point was what the characters in the novel learn by the end. They all, at some point early in the series, learned to survive in the strictest sense of the word; what they do in Forever is learn to live. Grace is the least conflicted of the four in the novel, probably because her battle to merely survive was lost (or possibly the definition of survival was changed) at the end of Linger; for her, the biggest battle is to make it back to Sam and recognize herself and their relationship in a very different light. Sam, however, has some major demons to slay: for him, truly living is all about facing down his fears. Whether it be bathtubs, Beck's true motives, shifting again, or losing Grace, Sam must come to grips with the things that have held him captive. These things were all built up very poignantly in the first two books, and seeing Sam deal with them (realistically and honestly) create some of the most moving scenes in the novel. The fact that Sam moves past being controlled by these fears is part of why the ambiguity of the ending didn't bother me; the point is not so much happens over the winter but that Sam's life can really now be a life.

Cole and Isabel are fighting to move past what they label the "toxicity" of their separate pasts that leads them to push each other away for fear of being toxic to each other. Cole starts to win his battle first and is able to show Isabel that they are only as toxic as they choose to be. Cole St. Clair grew over the course of this novel, and we see glimpses of the leader Beck knew he could be from the very beginning of the story. Isabel, on the other hand, must give up her hardness and desire to push people away in order to truly live. Her choice at the end of the novel is huge precisely because it is completely selfless; she believes she has no hope for her own happy ending, but she takes action at great cost to herself for friends who have really become her family.

In the end, this series is about love in all its forms. It is the story of friends, family, and lovers living life and taking care of each other. I so wish that I could speak more eloquently about this book and this series, but perhaps I'm still a bit too close to the experience of reading it to do so. Just trust me: read these books!

Check out Angie's wonderful review: it says everything I couldn't!

South Riding: An Unexpected Book with an Unexpected Message

There are many things that I love about PBS' Masterpiece; one is that the program often inspires me to read things that I wouldn't otherwise read. I discovered Little Dorrit this way (but I would have found it eventually, given the fact that it was written by Charles Dickens), and I just finished South Riding, by Winifred Holtby, which I REALLY wouldn't have found if not for the BBC/Masterpiece series.

Friends, I have discovered a new literary love. It is so pleasurable to read something so completely embued with a love of place (in this case Yorkshire) and so reflective of a community of people. I can't really talk about this book and my thoughts on it without giving away major plot points, so consider yourself warned.



Sarah Burton is the new headmistress of the Kiplington High School (confession: there are three towns in the South Riding, and I never quite figured out which was which. Throw in another village, and I was geographically-confused most of the time. I still really enjoyed it!), and she is as modern as they come. She is strong-willed, outspoken, passionate, dedicated, and completely convinced of the importance of her mission to show her students (all girls) that there can be more to their future than marriage and babies. It doesn't take long before she clashes with the more traditional, staid members of South Riding, especially Robert Carne, a gentleman farmer and father of one of Sarah's more interesting students.

Sarah's fight against the traditionalists is a small piece of the larger conflict between tradition and progress that the novel focuses on. We are introduced to idealistic preachers, cheery self-made men, poverty-stricken families struggling to survive, the aristocracy, the working class, and everything in between. All these characters are deeply flawed, but most of them are also deeply likable. While it at first seems that most of the inhabitants of South Riding have very little in common, it becomes clear by the end of the novel that they are bound by community, and, as Sarah so eloquently realizes, "'we all pay,' she thought; 'we all take; we are members one of another. We cannot escape this partnership. This is what it means--to belong to a community; this is what it means to be a people.'"

South Riding takes place as England teeters on the edge of war with Germany. Reminescences and horrors of WWI loom large in the minds of many characters, and the cost of the War to End All Wars is still being paid. Even as the inhabitants of the South Riding strive to recover from that horrific conflict, they are forced to prepare for and reconcile themselves to what will become another bloody, draining conflict. I was deeply moved, especially, by Sarah's memories of the wars and her reactions to things as simple as patriotic songs that were sung during WWI. These remembrances serve to highlight all the more starkly the foreboding nature of the war about to break.

Even though there is a huge cast of characters in the book, in the end, really, it is Sarah's story. I had a few jarring moments as I was reading this book: the first came when Sarah realizes her love for Robert Carne. She is a strong, independent woman, so far ahead of her time, so to hear her acknowledging that she would give anything to have one night with Robert, even if he was so drunk that he thought she was his mentally unstable wife, was a bit shocking and disappointing. Her declarations of love (never to him, of course, but just to the reader) were beautiful and moving, and Holtby intentionally alludes to Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester as she introduces Carne, shows us how Sarah falls for him, and even in the way that Sarah and Carne interact.

The thing that almost took away my love for this book was the death of Robert Carne. Holtby makes it fairly clear that Carne will die because of heart problems, but the manner of his death still shocked me. I will admit to being quite the romantic; I wanted Sarah and Carne to be together, and finally, after 400 pages, it seemed that Carne was starting to acknowledge the possibility of feelings for Sarah. He is a wounded, damaged man, distraught over the loss of his wife to mental illness, wracked with guilt over his perceived fault in driving her to insanity, and determined to sacrifice everything (even his ancestral home, himself, and his pride) to see that Muriel (his wife) is cared for. I freely admit that there are few things more appealing to me than the wounded suffering hero, and to see him, after so much pain, and strife, and hardship, catch a glimmer of hope and change in Sarah was beautiful and exactly what my mushy little heart wanted to see.

And then he has a terrible accident, dies, and leaves behind speculation of fraud, suicide, and cowardice.

He dies.

And I found myself thinking, "WHAT THE.........!!!!!!!!!"

It was not a pretty moment in my reading life. This character, who I had become so deeply invested in, is cast off without seeming thought or care from his creator.

Sarah, naturally, is destroyed by her guilt, grief, and regret (in true repressed, angsty fashion, they never discussed their feelings), and she is at a loss, almost paralyzed by what she sees as the game-changer of her life.

I will admit: I was angry at Winifred Holtby. True, Sarah eventually finds out that Carne did feel the same for her, and she has several almost transcendant revelations about herself, her purpose, and life in general, but it wasn't until I read the epitaph that Holtby's good friend Verra Brittain wrote that I understood.

Winifred Holtby wrote South Riding as she was fighting her final battle with terminal kidney disease; she finished the novel a month before she died. And I understood that Robert Carne had to die because Holtby, like Sarah, was reconciling herself to the reality of death; she was coming to grips with her own death, and to have Robert Carne die in the way that he did was a fitting testament to Holtby's resolution about her own death. South Riding shows Holtby's belief that "the world, with all its beauty and adventure, its richness and variety, is darkened by cruelty. Death, if it ends the loveliness, the adventure, ends also that. Death balances the picture. It completes the pattern. It makes even cruelty fall into place. It is completion."

Brittain wrote:

"This tale of universal values mirrored in local experience is not only an achievement of the mind; it is a triumph of personality, a testament of its author's undaunted philosophy. Suffering and resolution, endurance beyond calculation, the brave gaiety of the unconquered spirit, held Winifred Holtby back from the grave and went to its making. Seed-time and harvest, love and birth, decay and resurrection, are the immemorial stuff of which it has been created. In it lies the intuitive rather than the conscious awareness of imminent death. Its lovely country scenes go back to the earliest memories of the Yorkshire child who, thirteen years ago, came as a brilliant Oxford graduate to London, as though she returned to her beginning because some instinct told her that beyond the brave struggle for life and for time, the inevitable end was near.

This knowledge has given to South Riding a wisdom and maturity beyond its author's years. With the clear enlightenment born of her own peril, she understands the men and women who already belong to those dim regions where the living walk as strangers, yet who hide from their friends their consciousness of encroaching doom. She realises that the death which swoops down from the sky or roars upward from the sea may sometimes appear a mercy and a release; she knows the reassurance brought to the soul tormented with griefs and problems by the certainty that life is not endless nor sorrow everlasting."

To have written a book that is about death that is so vibrant, full, refreshing, and beautiful is a true accomplishment. I will definitely be seeking out more of Winifred Holtby's work.

"Perfect Girl"

Attachments*, by Rainbow Rowell, tells an odd love story with perfect comic timing, beautiful writing, and an innate understanding of what real love and relationships are all about. Here's the summary from Goodreads: "Beth and Jennifer know their company monitors their office e-mail. But the women still spend all day sending each other messages, gossiping about their coworkers at the newspaper and baring their personal lives like an open book. Jennifer tells Beth everything she can't seem to tell her husband about her anxieties over starting a family. And Beth tells Jennifer everything, period.

When Lincoln applied to be an Internet security officer, he hardly imagined he'd be sifting through other people's inboxes like some sort of electronic Peeping Tom. Lincoln is supposed to turn people in for misusing company e-mail, but he can't quite bring himself to crack down on Beth and Jennifer. He can't help but be entertained-and captivated- by their stories.

But by the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late for him to ever introduce himself. What would he say to her? "Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you." After a series of close encounters and missed connections, Lincoln decides it's time to muster the courage to follow his heart . . . even if he can't see exactly where it's leading him.

Written with whip-smart precision and charm, Attachments is a strikingly clever and deeply romantic debut about falling in love with the person who makes you feel like the best version of yourself. Even if it's someone you've never met."


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Attachments achieves that rare thing of having characters that are completely relatable, real, and likeable. Lincoln is a quiet man who feels things deeply and lives a very insular life. It takes him a long time to realize that he needs and wants to change his life, which includes everything from moving out of his mother's house and having a job that doesn't break down his spirit and sense of right and wrong to admitting his feelings for the one woman who he thinks he can never have.

Lincoln is a sensitive, kind soul, but he still comes off the page as completely real and believable. I even found myself falling for Lincoln just a little bit, even though I knew he was a character in a book. In many ways, Lincoln is an idealized yet completely realistic man: he loves long and hard (seemingly challenging Anne Elliot's claim that women love longest when all hope is gone), he falls in love for all the right reasons, he is honest, compassionate, and tender, and he has a refreshingly frank and simple approach to himself and his life; on the other hand, he does some incredibly stupid things, he is a bit slow on the uptake, his confidence in himself is almost nil for most of the book, and he can be complacent, hesitant, and altogether too passive. All these things, however, combine to paint a romantic hero more boy-next-door than idealized prince.

As I was reading the email exchanges, with Lincoln, between Jennifer and Beth, I felt like I was reading the emails of real people. These two women are self-confident, brash, rude, kind, silly, and supportive, and I kept thinking to myself, "I want to be friends with them!" I also kept thinking about my former roommate and I. We didn't email at work nearly as much as Jennifer and Beth, but when we did email, they were epic, and I knew that, more often than not, I should NOT read them while students were in the room because I would probably end up laughing uproariously. She has similar stories. We would, however, email while we were at home; there was one particularly memorable time when we facebook messaged each other back and forth for thirty minutes while sitting in the same ROOM! Some might find this disturbing or pathetic; I prefer to think of it as charming and adorable. And while we may not have talked about the same things that Jennifer and Beth did, our emails and messages always had the same comradery, deep affection, and caring as Jennifer and Beth's even when they, like Jennifer and Beth's, were at their snarkiest. Rowell captures the tones and nuances of friendship between two smart women perfectly, and you can't help but root for both of them.

Jennifer, Beth, and Lincoln were all wonderful, and I could totally understand all three of them at various points throughout the novel. Even the quirky characters (Lincoln's mom and sister, Lincoln's Dungeons & Dragons buddies, Lincoln's co-workers, and the oh-so-appealing but oh-so-despicable Chris) are real and just jump off the page.

I know that many have classified this book as light reading or weekend reading, but I found it profound, insightful, and meaningful. The writing was wonderful, and I found myself doing two things that I almost never do while reading: laughing out loud and crying. Reading is a highly internalized experience for me, which is why I think I so rarely have external reactions to what I am reading. I may smile internally or think, "that's funny!"; I may feel my stomach twist because something I just read is almost unbearably sad, poignant or touching; for these experiences to leap accross that divide between my most internal experience of a book and my external interactions with the world, they must be extreme: extremely funny, extremely moving, extremely horrifying. Attachments did this: it was so visceral and real that I couldn't help but experience it beyond the internal.

This is one of those books that I want EVERYONE to read; I want to buy lots of copies and indiscriminately give it away; I want to email everyone I know and tell them to read this book. This is the first book of the year that I KNEW, as soon as I finished it, would make my top reads of the year. Considering it's only May, that is high praise indeed.

So please. Do yourself a favor. Check out this quirky read, be pulled into the world of The Courier, and enjoy the ride. But set aside some time: once you start it, you won't want to put it down.

Thanks to Wallace for reviewing this! I never would have found it otherwise!

"I Will Fix You"

One of my good friends has a theory about why women love the story of Beauty and the Beast so much (whether in its movie, fairy tale, or retelling form): she believes that women love the idea of being able to fix and heal the men they love. This aspect of love's healing and redemptive powers has a huge role to play in Son of the Shadows, by Juliet Marillier, the second book in the Sevenwaters Trilogy (which isn't a trilogy any longer). I gushed about the first book here.

I'll go ahead and tell you right now that this book is my favorite of the Sevenwaters books, and I fear that my review won't really do it justice. And I really want to do it justice because it is so amazing and perfect in every way. Son of the Shadows builds upon the good work that Juliet Marillier started in Daughter of the Forest and adds elements of a very Beauty and the Beast-esque love story and the importance of choices and making your own path. All this results in a breathtaking book that I was enthralled with from start to finish.

The book opens with Liandan telling the story of her mother and father, Sorcha and Red. Liadan is very much like Sorcha: she loves her garden and is a healear; Liadan, unlike Sorcha, also has the gift (or curse) of the Sight: she can see the past, present, and future in flashes and is very valued by the Fair Folk who aided her mother in Daughter of the Forest. According to Sorcha, Liadan is a woman who potentially has great power to change the course of things because she was not a part of the vision that Sorcha had of her children; Sorcha saw Niamh, Sorcha's older sister, ans Sean, Liadan's twin brother, quite clearly, but only had a glimpse of a shadowy, saddened presence on the outskirts of her vision. This shadowy presence, I think, points to Bran, a man more connected to Sevenwaters and Sorcha's and Red's story than he would ever wish to be.

Just like Daughter of the Forest, Son of Shadows is about the love of family if it is about anything. Marillier sets up the story that she explores in her next book with the story of Niamh and Ciaran. I won't spoil the story of these two characters, but they must fight great pain, danger, and opposition to be together. Ciaran, especially, is a key figure in Liadan and Bran's story, and Liadan is one of the few people who seeks to understand her sister's pain and the great change that overcomes her in the middle of this book.

The reason that I loved this book, however, is because of the story of Liadan and Bran. After Niamh's wedding, Liadan accompanies Niamh and her new husband on part of their trip home. On her return to Sevenwaters, Liadan is kidnapped by members of the infamous Painted Men. These men kidnapped Liadan because they knew of her reputation as a healear and were desparate to help their friend Evan, a blacksmith for the group of fighting men.

As Liadan fights to save Evan, she often goes head to head against the leader of the Painted Men. Simply known as Chief by his men, Liadan christens him Bran because of an intricate raven tattoo that covers the entire right side of his body. Bran is a hard, bitter man who seems to have lived many years beyond his own twenty-one, and he bears a deep dislike and distrust for all women, which naturally extends to Liadan. Liadan stubbornly insists on treating Evan and demands that Bran make that possible. They clash often, and Liadan finds Bran puzzling. He is a hard man who seems to feel nothing, but she also catches glimpses, both because of the Sight and because of her interactions with Bran, of a scared, abandoned child who is terrified of the dark. Liadan is not sure how to resolve these contradictory identities, and it is not until the other men ride off on a mission, leaving behind Liadan to tend a dying Evan and Bran to guard and protect Liadan, that things start to change between Liadan and Bran.

Despite her best efforts, Evan dies, and it is at their makeshift funeral for him that Liadan and Bran, Bran especially, show their vulnerability. This oppenness finally bridges the gap between the tentative starts at understanding each other and the acknowledgment of love and desire that Liadan and Bran make. The rest of the novel focuses on the fight that Liadan must survive to not only be with Bran but to bring Bran back to himself.


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Again Marillier presents two very real characters trying to figure out who they are and how they can be together. Bran has many obstacles to overcome before he can allow himself to consider a life with Liadan and his son, Johnny, and it is Liadan that must bring him past many of these obstacles. She becomes, quite literally, the light that guides him. It is not until he can acknowledge this and be honest about his past that he can come out of the shadows and accept his true place in life and at Liadan's side.

There is so much more to this story, but I simply can't do justice to it here. The heart of the story, however, and the thing that moved me the most about Son of the Shadows, was Liadan's steadfastness is loving and helping Bran. She tells her mother, "we share a bond. Not love, exactly. It goes beyond that. He is mine as surely as sun follows moon across the sky. Mine before ever I knew he existed. Mine until death and beyond." Liadan shines for Bran through the darkest nights, she pulls him from the darkness (both literally and figuratively), and she sets a whole different story into motion with her bold choice of Bran and the life he offers. She is his hope, and she helps him find the strength to live with the hope and goodness and brightness that he finds in and with her.

This story is so much more than a romance: it tells a story of the true nature of love, and it is a powerful testament to why hope and love are necessary for our survival.

Please don't just take my rather scattered, ill-spoken word on this. Find these books, read them, and be swept up in this wonderful world created by a gifted storyteller and excellent wordsmith.

When the Fates Conspire...

Hello, blogging friends. I was doing so well; my last two posts were up within a week of each other, and I had grand intentions of reviewing the The Cookbook Collector and Eat Pray Love (I won't bore you with how much the lack of commas in this title bugs me!)and sharing some of my favorite Atticus (of To Kill a Mockingbird fame) anecdotes.

And then the Fates (also known as the Realities of Real Life) intervened with: a massive two-day headache (possibly a migraine?) complete with nausea and general ickiness, family friends visiting from the Dominican Republic who needed an additional translator, and my parents' internet, which decided that it hated not only my computer (old news) but also all computers currently residing in my parents' home.

However, I am back, and I have exciting news! I received a call last Thursday to interview for a job at a high school! It is the first application that has actually turned into an interview (yay for potential employment and the hope of moving out of my parents' place. Don't get me wrong: I am so thankful that they have let me stay with them, but this CANNOT be a permanent situation...). I spent this weekend shopping for an interview outfit, telling the story of my interview over and over again, and generally being nervous about said interview.

The interview went really well, and now I am waiting to hear back from the school. This waiting is definitely more nervewracking and stomach-twisting than the waiting for the interview day. So to distract myself yesterday, I went to see Eat Pray Love.

And this, my friends, is where we have the opportunity to discuss a rarity in my book world: I liked the movie better than the book. I loved Elizabeth Gilbert's voice and writing style, but there was just a bit too much Eastern mysticism, God is who you want him to be, let's all chant in Sanskrit for my taste. Despite all this, however, I will readily admit that this book (and the movie) really reasonated with me; I mean, how could it not? It's all about a woman who makes a seemingly crazy, huge change in her life, and her life is literally never the same. For the better. How could I not relate? The movie had this same effect on me (the spiritualism was played down quite a bit while still retaining Gilbert's distinct voice and humor, which I thought was a much better tone than the book) and proved to be a good distraction from my interview worries because it was like taking a mini vacation to three exotic locations (in only 3 hours!). I especially loved the scene at the end where Liz explains the physics of the quest: she essentially said that making a change can't be anything but good. And in my case, I think she's right.

On the bookish front, I am very excited to participate in the Bleak House Readalong that is being hosted by the Zen Leaf. I have been meaning to actually finish this book for quite some time, and I had vowed back in June to read it during my less hectic, temporarily (hopefully) unemployed time. And here is the perfect incentive! Many consider this Dickens' greatest work, so head over to sign up if you want to read with us!

Shivers Down My Spine

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I don't always know what to do about book hype, particularly when the book being hyped is a Young Adult novel. I have nothing against Young Adult Literature, but ever since the Twilight fiasco, I have been a bit wary. Imagine my surprise, then, when I devoured Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater, in a mere day and a half. I didn't know much about the book, but when I saw it on the library's new books shelf, I thought to myself, "what the heck. I'll give it a try."

Boy, am I glad I did.

First let me just say how much I appreciate that Stiefvater's publisher a) did not give away the entire book in the blurb and b) did an amazing job on the cover art. Okay, on to the review!


I'm not going to give a plot synopsis here since I am probably the last person in the blogosphere to have read this book. The main characters are Grace and Sam, and I liked both of them almost immediately. Grace is a junior in high school, but she pretty much keeps her family together: both her parents are rather scatterbrained, so most of the care giving responsibilities fall on her. Sam had a pretty rough childhood, and his teen years are proving to be quite trying, too. I don't want to give away the twist here, but I do want to commend Stiefvater for writing two great characters who feel like real teenagers. She understands teens without condescension or cliche. It's a book that deals with lots of emotions, but these emotions never feel fake or melodramatic; they are real and genuine and, as a result, evoked some pretty real emotional responses from me.

This is a sweetly told story, and it maintains its sweetness and sass despite some not-so-nice details. I especially appreciated that Stiefvater explored and present Grace and Sam's relationship in a realistic but tasteful way. She conveyed the strong feelings that so often come when great amounts of emotions and hormones are involved, but it never got weird or icky. The ins and outs of their relationship were very well done.

Needless to say, the book delivers. It is all about longing, loss, pain, and love, and it is supernatural/fantasy writing at its best: it takes a complex human dilemma, clothes it in some rather fantastical clothing, and then lets the situation unfold in a realistic, moving way despite its fantastical elements. If anything, because it is fantasy it allows for a more honest, up-close look at and answer to how we deal with the complexities of wanting someone, loving someone, and helping another person conquer his personal demons.

I am eagerly waiting for my turn to come up on the library's hold list so I can get my hands on the next book in the series, Linger. The last book in the series will be published next summer, and I'm sure it will be hard to wait if Linger is anything like Shiver.

How Do We Go On? Living in the Face of Suffering

I recently finished two extremely different books that both dealt with the issue of how we as individuals and as a nation can continue living a supposedly normal and disinterested existence when we know what other people are experiencing around the world.

The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake, is a novel that is set in 1940 and 1941; the novel depicts the stories of the people living in a tiny coastal town in Massachustes (literally the last town in America before hitting the Atlantic Ocean), specifically the postmaster, Iris, the town mechanic, Harry, and the new doctor, Will, and his new wife, Emma. The novel also follows Frankie Bard, a woman reporter covering the Blitz in London and then trying to discover what the Nazis are really doing to all the Jews the are relocating.

The other book is The Bread of Angels, by Stephanie Saldana. In this memoir, Saldana recounts the year she spent in Syria (2004-2005); Saldana discusses the people she met, the struggles (emotional, spiritual, and physical) she encountered, and the most definitely unorthodox decisions that she made as a result of her time spent in Syria.

Both of these books were very fast reads for me, but I found The Bread of Angels to be a much more authentic answer to the question of how to continue living in the face of suffering. Saldana confronted the repercussions of war, poverty, and religious differences with honesty and authenticity; I never felt like she was hiding her pain or her indecision regarding suffering from the reader. In fact, I think it was Saldana's raw pain, doubt, fear, and insecurity that made this such a compulsive read for me. I didn't necessarily agree with all of Saldana's thoughts, resolutions, and answers, but I still found the book to be an honest portrait of a woman striving to define and live by what was important and mattered most to her.

Sarah Blake, on the other hand, ruined the good work that she did in her novel by feeling the need to explain that she was dealing with how people continued living, unchanged, in the face of suffering. I was interested to learn what inspired Blake to write her novel, but I felt a bit patronized by her explanation of why she discussed the Blitz and Frankie Bard's journey through Nazi-occupied Europe. Coincidentally, it was Frankie Bard's train journey, spent recording the stories of Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi regime, that resonated most deeply for me; it was the least forced and most authentic part of Blake's story, and it was the part of the novel that evoked the deepest, truest emotions in me. It clearly presented the juxtaposition that Blake sought and was powerful enough to make Blake's explanation unnecessary. By contrast, the rest of the novel seemed to be working too hard to prove a point (a point that didn't necessarily match her content) without just letting the story be told.

Interestingly, The Postmistress has stayed with me, largely because of how it ended. I realize that part of the reason that I like Victorian literature so much is that there is always a neatly wrapped-up ending, and oftentimes those endings are happy. This was not the case with The Postmistress. I didn't feel as though the ending fit the book; it seemed as though Blake wanted to infuse as much suffering as possible into her novel, but, ironically, she never attempted to make sense of that suffering. Saldana, however, presented just as much pain and suffering, but all that pain and suffering (even though much of it was senseless and unnecessary) became a necessary piece of how her story was told.

The Fairy Tale Post, or I Assure You I am Alive

According to T.S. Eliot, "April is the cruelest month," and in many ways April was a very cruel month to me! April was busy, busy, busy, mostly because I was accompanying for the school's production of State Fair. It was loads of fun to get back to my musical theater roots, but the sleep deprivation definitely took its toll. April started strong for me, but then I floundered: I have put down at least four books that just haven't managed to keep my interest (ironically, all the audio books I listened to in April were wonderful, so maybe I was just too tired to physically read?).

I did, however, manage to read three fairy tale-esque books, so I figured I would talk about all three in one post since I still need to fulfill my fairy tale requirement for the Once Upon a Time Challenge. Without further ado, I give you three petite reviews!

The Girl with Glass Feet, by Ali Shaw
I was probably the last person with a book blog to read this book, but it was well worth the wait! This novel is a darker sort of fairy tale (think Brothers Grimm) but is no less enchanting for its dark, unflinching look at the reality of life. I won't summarize the plot here because I want to focus on the characters. I found Midas to be one of the most complete, cohesive characters I have read in a long time. From the opening passage that tells us that Midas is only comfortable looking at things through the lense of his camera, we know that Midas will face his fair share of obstacles and struggles. Midas is awkward, isolated, introverted, and "rigid in every way;" he knows very little about interacting with people in general. All this changes when he meets Ida (the fact that her name is part of his is probably not coincidence). Ida is struggling with her own bizarre problems, and over the course of the novel, these two characters must confront painful things about themselves, their pasts, and each other. In many ways, both are looking for completion and redemption, and they both look to each other in order to find them. This novel does not give easy answers, and does have its flaws (the winged bulls seemed completely random and unnecessary), but the novel ends as it should and presents itself as a very modern fairy tale. Here are some favorite quotes:

The snow was as stiff as the rest of St. Hauda's Land. The awkward bending of branches in the wind, the brittle leaves that broke like ancient parchments. Even a falcon she had watched fly without grace, with mechanical beats of its wings. As if that was the way of these islands, to seize things up, to weather away their vitality.

She found time for inhibited men, and in doing so found excuses for them. There must be some excuse for the way his father left an inheritance of inhibitions for his son.

This was my favorite of the fairy tale books that I read, and I am anxiously waiting for this to come out in paperback so I can buy it!

Sing Me To Sleep, by Angela Morrison
This Young Adult novel was another attempt to add to my summer reading list. It didn't make the cut for the list, but it had some very unique things going for it. It's not the best thing I ever read, but I appreciated how well the author captured a teenage girl's mindset, worries, and thought process. The story is a twist on Beauty and the Beast. Beth, the main character, is a tall, unattractive girl who is teased mercilessly; her classmates find her so unattractive that they call her the Beast. She has one friend, Scott, who she is becoming increasingly aware of as a boy and potential love interest. The only thing that Beth feels she has going for her in life is her singing. Beth has a beautiful voice and is a member of a competitive youth choir. When her choir travels to Switzerland for a competition, she meets Derek. As Beth and Derek attempt to build a relationship, odd things have Beth confused, and the answers to her questions are most definitely not happy. This book does not have a fairy tale ending, but was a pleasing distration from the realities of school and grading.

Curse Dark as Gold
This is a Young Adult retelling of Rumplestilskin (spelling is probably incorrect...sorry, it's a very long German name to spell from memory!). I've always loved retellings of fairy tales; I think I read every Donna Jo Napoli book I could get my hands on in high school! This book was a bit on the creepy side for me (I'm a major wimp when it comes to anything scary), but I really enjoyed the explanations that the author gave for why Rumplestilskin, known as Jack Spinner in the novel, wanted the main character's baby. The writing was much stronger in this novel than in Sing Me to Sleep, which was perhaps due to the fact that Sing Me to Sleep was Angela Morrison's first novel while Curse Dark As Gold was not Elizabeth Bunce's first.

All in all, Girl with Glass Feet was my favorite. Here's to being back in the world of blogging!

Straight From the Heart = Straight From the Kitchen

I do not love to cook. And really, I don't cook that often. I find it to be too much of a hassle just cooking for myself; there is very little incentive for me to spend more time preparing and cleaning up than enjoying the product, so I tend to eat a lot of cereal, toast, quesadillas, and turkey sandwiches.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen, by Molly Wizenberg, made me want to love to cook. Heck, it made me want to cook period! As already mentioned, I stumbled across this book on Roses Over a Cottage Door, and I am so glad that I did!

A Homemade Life is the story of Molly Wizenberg's cooking and eating life. The two are very intertwined since her parents were great cooks; Wizenberg grew up in the kitchen, and the kitchen is where she firmly remains today. This is a very poignant, fresh book, and it will pull you in as soon as you start. I loved Wizenberg's honesty about everything from foods she hated as a child to how she coped with her father's death to the things her husband does that drive her crazy. I felt like I was listening to an old friend as I read this book, and I even found some recipes to try. This book was so wonderful that it might actually get me in the kitchen!

On a final note, be sure that you know exactly where you are in your reading of this book. A Homemade Life is a book that you can easily dip in and out of, but as my roommate found out, you might skip crucial parts of the story if you only have a general idea of where you are in the book!

I Want to be Jane Eyre When I Grow Up

He wakes to the scratching of a pencil against a page: a noise out of the darkness. He lies quite still on his back, reaching out for sound. His ears have become wings, straining, stretching, carrying him away. The world comes to him only through sound, and there is precious little of that.

So begins Becoming Jane Eyre, by Sheila Kohler. The novel opens soon after Charlotte Bronte's father's eye surgery; they are far away from home and all that is familiar. Charlotte is nursing her father, and her father is acknowledging her in a way he never had before. According to Sheila Kohler, it was during this convalescence that Charlotte Bronte started writing Jane Eyre.

I knew I wanted to read this book from the first time that I saw it in Borders. I have loved Jane Eyre since I first read it at sixteen, and I was intrigued by the premise of the novel. Essentially, Kohler intertwines Charlotte's struggles and desires with those of Jane; the result is an interesting and moving acknowledgment of Jane Eyre's power. Kohler also discusses Charlotte's relationship with her sisters, and it was easy to feel along with her as whe watched Branwell's demise, attempted to cajole Emily and Anne into publication, wrestled with her jealousy over the publication of her sisters' novels before her own was published, and mourned her two dear sisters' deaths.

I did not love this book, but I did appreciate it. Becoming Jane Eyre made me want to delve into Jane Eyre; it also made me want to pull out my copy of Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bronte. I was pleasantly surprised by how normal Emily Bronte was (my view of her is admittedly skewed by my negative reactions to Wuthering Heights), and I was greatly intriuged By Anne Bronte.

Sheila Kohler's writing was beautiful and visceral. She presented Charlotte Bronte as a real woman with real (pressing problems). She did not deify Bronte, but neither did she try to explain Bronte. She presented Charlotte; she did not pyschoanalyze her (again, this is another reaction to two novels involving Chrales Dickens that I ultimately could not bring myself to finish because I didn't want my view of Dickens ruined).

Bottom line: I am glad I read this book because it brought back many of the feelings I had while reading Jane Eyre for the first time. It also made me want to read the other Bronte novels (Villette, Agnes Grey, and Tenant of Wildfell Hall in particular).

One Will Love This Book

It was only a matter of time; I have caught one of the many bugs going around the school where I teach, and after practically losing my voice yesterday, I decided I needed to take a sick day and try to get better. This decision was quickly followed by the realization that East of Eden was NOT what the doctor ordered. It's a great novel, but it's definitely not something to read when you're feeling crummy.

Luckily for me, however, Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader was waiting for me at the library. I had read about it on several blogs, and it turns out that it was the perfect book to read!

I read The Uncommon Reader in one night, and it was just lovely. It is always nice to recognize pieces of yourself in characters that you read about, and I think half the book will end up in my quotations notebook! It is a very gentle tale of how the Queen of England's life is turned upside down by a single visit to a travelling library. She wasn't much of a reader before, but she quickly falls in love with books, reading, and the new world that books open up for her. The people around her become more and more perplexed and exasperated, and when the Queen, inspired by all the wonderful things she has been reading, decides to try writing herself, very interesting and unexpected things happen!

Alan Bennett manages to poke fun at many people's preconceived notion of what books are for, how books should be read, and what is and isn't appropriate dinner conversation (i.e. books are not appropriate dinner conversation). As the Queen dives deeper and deeper into her lists of books, her staff and advisers, with the exception of the faithful Norman, become more and more perturbed by the changes that are taking place in "Ma'am." Many even consider that the Queen is probably sinking into senility (which presents a whole different problem than the book obsession since Alzheimer's is so singularly common), which is highly ironic given the fact that the Queen finds herself to be more mentally vivacious than she has been in a very long time. Bennett shows how powerful the reading experience can be and shows, as the Queen herself says, that reading is often a "tenderising" undertaking. The Queen herself changes not only her ideas and understanding of her surroundings because of what she reads; she starts to see and notice things in people that she never would have been aware of before.

Part of what is so compelling about Bennett's story for me is the presence of another voracious, compulsive reader. I love that the Queen was willing to try anything, and her reading horizons were broadened immensely. I don't necessarily agree with her philosophy of always finishing a book once having started it, but I do think it is a wise reader (which the Queen very much is) who is willing to give an author a second chance because she knows that reading exercises the brain and makes it stronger. I also appreciate that the Queen realizes that reading should be an interactive experience; I believe that we get the most out of what we read if we respond to it and interact with it in some way both while we read and after we are done. Again, it is a wise reader who reads with a pen or pencil or highlighter in hand because she knows that there are treasures to be mined as she reads. The Uncommon Reader demonstrates that there is so much more to reading than entertainment; entertainment is all well and good, but reading and writing at their best can challenge us and make us think in ways that we wouldn't have otherwise and often can literally change our lives.

One thing I found myself wondering over and over as I read was what the real Queen's response was to this book. Was this book inspired by something particular? As an American, I will admit that I know very little about the ins and outs of the English monarchy, so I was left wondering about what Bennett was trying to achieve with the book. Was his purpose simply a gentle satire of people in general, or was he pointing out and satirizing something specific to the monarchy? Again, I very much felt my non-Englishness and the fact that I wasn't really in the know.

Part of the brilliance of Bennett's story, however, lies in the fact that you don't have to be English to appreciate the Queen's discovery of books. In fact, I would venture that the Queen is not an uncommon reader simply because she is the Queen; she is an uncommon reader because of what and how she reads. And that, my friends, is what makes The Uncommon Reader so appealing!