Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island. Pirates. Booty. Cutlasses. Danger. Double-crossing. That’s about all there is to say about Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale of adventure on the high seas. But, of course, being me, I can say much, much more. Last night I was at a restaurant waiting for Chinese food to arrive at my table. I started jotting down words called to mind by this book: fast, roller coaster (and rolling sea), terrifying (even when I already knew the ending), gruesome, dark. Treasure Island is a children’s book through and through, but it is a terribly dark vision, a sort of bleak, godless Narnia.

[Learn about Stevenson at http://www.online-literature.com/stevenson/ or at http://www.robert-louis-stevenson.org/.]

Young Jack Hawkins works and lives at his parents’ inn. He becomes involved with pirates when a mysterious guest comes to stay--to hide there. Eventually, Jack becomes the owner of a treasure map--a map of Treasure Island. Only a few other people know about the map and the island, but each of them wants that map pretty bad. Jack works through the unfailingly honorable Doctor and Squire (although the squire is a bit gullible) and comes to set sail on the Hispaniola with his friends and the motley crew (surely this is the original motley crew). I’m not going to give away too much of the plot here. Go get the book. It’s a quick read, so read it--and read it aloud to anyone between 8 and 13 years old.

The pace of the book is masterful--in a sense, tidal. Huge waves of action come inexorably at you and then ebb away not to disappear but to gather strength for another assault of the beach. Prior to the sea journey, the pirates appear just one, briefly, then another, then two or three, like an ongoing tide themselves until the book and the Hispaniola’s honest crew are totally swamped with pirates. This breath-catching pace was aided and abetted by Stevenson’s able use of foreshadowing. A character expressed and then dismissed a doubt. Another character was just a bit off the norm. A name was dropped, a feature was mentioned. The sense of danger and doom coming in wave after wave began on about page 1 and ended on about page 296 (of 298). No let up.

Stevenson also draws characters and creates images that are striking and original. Ben Gunn, ghostly and odd. The ship marooned up a river and laying on its side. Guns sticking into the portals of the tiny fort. Dead bodies lying on a blood-drenched deck. The star of the menagerie, though, is certainly the pirate captain Long John Silver. I don’t know the provenance of pirate characters, but surely all pirates since have borne a debt to Long John Silver. Shaggy-haired, peg-legged, parrot squawking on shoulder, and above all so two-faced that he almost has no face at all--he’s elusive in all of his outrageousness. Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow is the best portrayal of Long John Silver that I can imagine. He has that same unctuousness, slipperiness. However, Jack Sparrow does seem to develop loyalties. He has a side to be on. Not Long John Silver. He is ever and only on his own side.

I was intrigued by pirate images. Peter Pan’s Captain Hook seems to draw greatly from Stevenson’s character, except missing a hand instead of a leg. Depp’s Captain Sparrow seems to be a direct descendant. When anyone thinks of “pirate” they must surely envision some amalgamation of these three. Kidnapped is next on my reading list. What pirate will that book reveal? It struck me that the Hook/Silver pirate is sort of a personified dragon (or vice versa). The dragon symbolizes mindless greed, mindless amassing of whatever is the chosen item--but it is often treasure. There is no life of the heart. It is not a “feeling” life.

Only the mid-book switch of narrators is awkward in this book--it even makes for clunky chapter titles. All of a sudden two chapters are first-person narrated by the Doctor instead of by Jack Hawkins, who narrates the rest of the book. I wish Stevenson had found another answer to getting out the doctor’s experiences while Jack is absent. Otherwise, this book is rapidly excellent.

At least there are no token women in this book--no blonde-of-the-month for a perfunctory romance. Except for one scene, this book is all male. The non-token woman is Jack’s mother, who shows great bravery and determination early in the book. She is a warrior in defense of her inn and her boy. Romance can so muck up a good adventure story. Look what it does to Depp’s Jack Sparrow!

A high recommend for this book for children and adults both. Read it before your next Pirates of the Caribbean excursion and you won’t be sorry.

NOTE OF SCHIZOPHRENIA: How did the same man who wrote Treasure Island, Dr. Jeckyl & Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped also write the insipid A Child’s Garden of Verses?

SIDE BAR: I am especially intrigued by Treasure Island now that I have begun writing one of my own. For example, at one point the idea of an apple barrel freely available to the ship’s crew is oddly introduced in a passage about the liberality of the owners. Turns out, the author needs someplace for Jack to hide to overhear the pirates’ plans. It is part of the god-like-ness of writing a fiction. A problem? Voila! An apple barrel. Writing a novel is a cosmic chess game, an infinite playing of “house,” like being let loose in a toy store. As a child I lived in a world of worlds, of fantasy places and people. Posing and peopling a novel is just like that except that it has to communicate and have at least a modicum of coherence. Treasure Island is great for seeing how the author works. Its bones show, but not in a way that distracts. It’s just plainly written and straightforward.

Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson

Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson, is the source of the classic tear-jerker movie of the same name. And it’s a good book, even though I was guarding myself all the way through so I wouldn’t have a breakdown at the end. I liked the authentic portrayal of pioneer life in Texas—dangers and delights. The lead character, Travis, is left with his mom and little brother while his dad goes off on a cattle drive. His jobs on the farm at the edge of the frontier are fraught with danger and drama—and rightly so. He had to round up the hogs for cutting (marking) and castration without getting attacked by the deadly adult pigs. He has to hunt for food for the family. And he needs a dog. Along comes rascally Old Yeller (Old Marigold?). Travis and Old Yeller have a hate/love relationship until Yeller proves his great value.

Marigold, Mountain Cur

I have a special interest in this book because of my dog Marigold. I was told that her breed is mountain cur--a dog bred to suit the needs of small farmers and settlers in rugged terrain. Old Yeller was also a mountain cur, according to the breed's afficianados (although he was played by a yellow lab in the movie--for shame). I can testify on the intelligence and loyalty of Marigold, which makes Old Yeller's story entirely believable.

Any person who really gets to know a dog--any dog--will have marvelous tales to tell--not maybe of deadly contests with wild animals, but still tales of the dog's sensitivity and skill. Marigold has a special strategy for catching baby bunnies. (Rabbits are plentiful in my area, so don't go all weepy on me!) She will lay down (sphinx-like) a few feet from the hole and go still as stone. Over the next few minutes she will creep forward an inch or so at a time until she is frozen over the hole like an innocuous rock. Then--pow!--all of her coiled and compressed energy flows out into a dive right into the center of the hole. Tiny rabbits fly out in all directions like a bunny explosion. Marigold is not greedy. She'll end up with just one bunny--enough for a snack. And, let me tell you about my old dog Candy and the field mice...just kidding.

Go to http://www.dogster.com/dog-breeds/Mountain_Cur for more information on this breed. The site http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/mountaincur.htm describes the Old Yeller connection.

This movie still looks pretty authentic, but the dog is all
wrong--way too chunky and square-nosed to be the dog
described in the book.

Old Yeller is a tribute to great dogs, working dogs, partner dogs. Their courage and loyalty is unmatched in any species, I think. And their intelligence is greatly underestimated. The book's ending is heartbreaking, and is related to a looming threat introduced early in the book. Old Yeller is a fully developed character and his death is a supreme sacrificial moment--as important as any other sacrifice and not diminished because it was made by a dog. And as I so often observe, the presence of an animal can often ennoble us as humans. Travis's whole family is changed and strengthened because of their relationship to Old Yeller.

This is a good book. It holds up across time. The first-person narrative was great. The use of“frontier-speak” was light-handed, but enough to give Travis an authentic voice. Even people who don’t like dogs will identify with the friendship that develops between Yeller and Travis as they face great danger with great courage. All kids, I think, face great dangers and have great courage. This book is for them.

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

Alistair Sim

I have posted photos of various actors playing Scrooge on my blog at www.whatsjoydickersonbeenreading.blogspot.com. Click on the post for A Christmas Carol. Which one is your favorite?

The children's reading list I've been working on for two years now is loaded with Dickens--Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House--and I spent several months immersed in his words. I wasn't just pleasantly surprised by these books--I was amazed and delighted. Dickens' writing was much richer than I expected and his themes were much more human. The theme that most struck me is Dickens' faith in the power of love to effect and ennoble change in people.

Patrick Stewart

First up on the Dickens list was the extended short story A Christmas Carol. I always think this story will bore me and I always end up enjoying it. And after reading so much by this author, I realized that the main reason for my enjoyment was that Dickens really knew how to tell a story with style and substance and unforgettable imagery. I was pleased with the book's pacing—just when I was getting restless, pow, something different would happen.

George C. Scott

And, Scrooge’s transformation was quite touching and pitiable—not nearly as dramatic as many movies portray it. The ghosts who haunt him on that fateful Christmas Eve drag Scrooge along on his own hero quest--even though he doesn't want to go. At each stop--past, present, and future--Scrooge's heart is pried open. At first, it's just a crack. By the end, Scrooge is flooded with love--it bubbles out of him--his tears flow and his laughter rings.

Mr. Magoo

As with the other Dickens works I read, A Christmas Carol gave me the sensation that I had traveled. London was beautifully drawn--and gruesomely. I was especially riveted by the thick, choking fog that surrounds Scrooge’s street on Christmas Eve.Probably the worst image is the two children, Want and Ignorance. They are dirty and unclothed and wild-eyed. They are insatiable and inconsolable. They are children unloved and they haunt me. Those brutal children are who I work for, who I fight for. Scrooge, finally, found his compassion, his ability to feel with, and he ennobled my own compassion. And this is exactly the mission Dickens set for himself--to shine a light on the worst and the least and awaken the need to love them. I wish I could sprinkle the spirit of Scrooge’s Christmas compassion on all of us, all of us, every one.

Jim Carrey

This is still a story for the ages--but not particularly one for children. You can read it in just a few hours. I recommend it as a wonderful activity for your holidays. 

And, by the way, my favorite Scrooge is George C. Scott.

The Silver Branch and The Lantern Bearers, by Rosemary Sutcliff

The Silver Branch and The Lantern Bearers continue the story of The Eagle of the Ninth. The heroes of each book trace their lineage back to Marcus of that book. Neither Branch nor Lantern matches the beauty or richness of character development in Eagle, but they are wonderful historical romances taking place in an intriguing setting that is both familiar (if you've been to England) and strange. The Roman seaport of Rutupiae figures in all three of the books and is a weighty symbol of the Romans in Britain in the 600 years or so around the birth of Jesus. (In fact, Christianity is portrayed as a novelty in these two books--and not at all in the first one, which took place prior to the birth of Jesus.)

Rutupiae, at present-day Richborough on the English Channel (nearish to Dover) was a major defensive stronghold and also received and sent out news, goods, and people from elsewhere in the world. "Britain" at this time was under attack from Saxons and Jutes from across the channel and from Picts and other tribes from north of the great Roman construction called Hadrian's Wall. Its borders correspond for the most part with modern England.

The Silver Branch told the story of Aquila, a young doctor in the Roman Legion, and his arrival at Rutupiae to serve in Britain. In a bit too much of a coincidence, the first person he meets in Britain is a relative who becomes his best friend, Flavius. Flavius is from Britain; the farm where he lives is the one established by (his grandfather?) Marcus Aquila in The Eagle of the Ninth. The two young men accidentally become aware of a threat to the British Emperor's reign. The Emperor's agenda is to establish Britain as a nation able to defend its own borders and hold its own place in the world even without the fall of Rome. Rome is seen as insecure as a protector.

Aquila and Flavius become outlaws, spies, counter-terrorists, and leaders of the resistance movemnt when the Emperor is killed. At their darkest time, when inspiration is needed the most, they find the Eagle of the Ninth, which had been hidden away until it was needed again. The Eagle becomes their rallying point through battle and hardship as they struggle to survive until the Romans return to restore order.
[For information on the Roman defense of Britain, discussed extensively in Rosemary Sutcliff's books, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/romans/defence_of_britain ]

The Lantern Bearers is a few generations further removed from Eagle of the Ninth. A young Roman soldier from Britain is forced to chose between the life he always dreamed of--rising through the ranks to command a legion--and defending his home. The book takes place at the time when the Roman army was abruptly removed from Britain, allowing all the various factions Rome had been controlling to battle it out among themselves. The light at Rutupiae represents the feeble light remaining in Britain when the Romans are gone. Aquila (yes, another Aquila) chooses to work for that faint light.

Aquila survives his family's slaughter by Saxons (the family farm is torn apart) only to be sold to a Jute as a slave. He is taken across the channel and works for the family for several years. No affection grows between them. (Sutcliff is pretty clear-eyed about slavery.) Aquila is both sustained and eaten up inside by the knowledge that his sister is also, somewhere, a slave.


This is a drawing of the Roman fortress of Rutupiae--note the signal light tower
dominating the other structures. Otherwise, this is a fairly typical layout for a
Roman fortress and its associated town outside the fort's walls.

When Aquila escapes, he finds that his sister is lost to him. In bitterness, he takes his skills as a soldier and offers them to the British king--also the remaining representative of Rome and all things Roman in Britain. This book seems to move somewhat underwater as Aquila moves from battle to battle. The British king prevails, but his rule is seen as fragile. The king's protege (not Aquila) is hinted to be the coming King Arthur, but this is not developed.

Aquila is difficult to like. He carries his hurts as a stronger armor than his steel breast plate. His relationships are cold and unsatisfying and the reader can see the hurt in the people around him. And, given his history, that makes sense. But it doesn't make easy fiction. In the end, Aquila sees that there has been a shape to his life. He has not restored Britain, but he has born the lantern through dark times--in fact, he lit that light.

One of Sutcliff's strengths is the variety of secondary characters she develops. Especially poignant is a servant who binds himself to the heroes of Silver Branch. He carries and plays an instrument from olden times, a tree branch of silver hung with bells. The silver branch represents the ancient life of Britain as the eagle represents the order and discipline of Rome. The new Britain must hold onto both. In such a world of upheaval and danger, Sutcliff''s sacred objects provide a deep continuity of history, character, and family.

The Picts, forerunners of the Scots, are represented by a hunter who helps Aquila and Flavius escape in Silver Branch. He joins up with them and is pivotal in their final battle. I get the feeling that Sutcliff may deal ably with the Picts in another book. [For information about the Picts [ancient Scots], go to http://halfmoon.tripod.com/.]

These are good books. I'm delighted to have discovered Sutcliff, who works with many of the themes of other mid-20th century writers, such as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. I wonder if she figured in the magical cross-pollination of imagination that occurred at that time. Her Britain is very much a Middle Earth, a Narnia, but one that is viscerally connected with us, one that is physically present and whose artifacts can still be seen and touched. [For images of the Roman ruins of Rutupiae, at present-day Richborough, go to Google Images and type "Roman Richborough" in the search line.]

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings series takes place in
fivedimensions--length, width,
depth, time, and emotion

Before I write about The Two Towers, I need to go back to Fellowship of the Ring. I note that the last actions of the book are the ones I discuss in my blog. And this brings up the issue of time. The early parts of Fellowship, Bilbo’s birthday, the transfer of the ring, Bree, and even Rivendell seemed like actions from a distant world by the time I got Frodo and Sam to Emyn Muil. I did not address Hobbiton, or even Moria. I’ve read many books where I experienced a sense of travel and of alternate reality, but with no others do I sense the passage of eons of time. This 4-D experience is part of the magic of the whole series. And at the middle of Fellowship, I feel sad to think of the beginning of the book and at the end I feel sad about the middle and feel like the beginning was a beautiful dream. And that is the fifth dimension—the journey of heart and feelings.

In The Two Towers, we go through the search for Merry and Pippin and their perilous journey. This is a story arc from grim to grimmer to victory, concluding with the victory at Helm’s Deep and the influveance (made up that word) of Isengard. The tree people play a stronger role in the book than in the movie. They are much more developed as a culture and as personalities. Merry and Pippin spent the early part of the journey relatively untouched by the strangeness they saw around them and by the seriousness of the quest. But with Treebeard et al., they start to learn and discover perspective. They even grow physically (quite symbolic!). They grow into their roles in the fellowship. They engage in battle at Isengard. Go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0QSg5f1Kk for a deleted scene between Treebeard and Merry and Pippin.

The Edoras/Helm’s Deep sequence is very much a battle story, as it should be. Slim chance of victory. Nick of time rescue. The Elves do not show up in the book (although they were a masterful stroke in the movie), but the woodlands of middle earth, mustered by Tom Bombidil, play a key role. In the background is the knowledge that Sam and Frodo are out there somewhere…and the second half of the book takes us on their journey. We wonder if Aragorn will ever step forward and claim the authority that is his birthright.

Frodo and Sam are struggling through Emyn Muil, up and down spiked hills, rappelling off of cliffs, and joining forces with Gollum. Gollum is not preposterous. And I do pity him, as Frodo was advised to do by Bilbo and Gandalf. He has lost a dream and there is nothing sadder than that, even if the dream had no chance of fruition. As I noted above, I felt very much that I was moving through space and time. The journey would sound boring if I stated it step-by-step here, but it wasn’t boring in the reading. Go to the website http://www.serkis.com/lord-of-the-rings-movie.htm for more information on Gollum's role in the story.

The book ends abruptly, highlighting the fact that the trilogy is not three books. It’s not even a trilogy, structurally. It’s one book in three volumes because it is too long to print and bind as one volume. Tolkien has total hold of me right now. I’m starting Return of the King in a few minutes. But, I’ll hate to say goodbye to these books.

The Eagle of the Ninth

NOTE: The third and fourth photos on this page are from a movie of this book.


The Eagle of the Ninth was a wonderful surprise--full of amazing plot, crystal-clear insights, interesting characters, and great writing. I had never heard of this book, but it was on my children's reading list, so I ordered it in from interlibrary loan and started reading. It was receipt of this book and two others in this series that made me happy enough to write my blog entry "Good Books: An American Freedom," available on this blog page.

Sutcliff sets this story in ancient Britain, during the time of Roman occupation, the second century A.D. The plot takes a young Roman soldier through his first command and then on to a quest to retrieve the eagle of his father's legion, called The Lost Ninth. The eagle is the golden standard held at the front of every legion--the eagle is protected as long as a soldier lives.

Our hero, Aquila, wants to return the eagle to bring honor to his father's legion, but also to find out if anyone knows what happened to the legion, what happened to his father. Along the way, Aquila grows greatly in understanding and courage. He finds that courage is easy with a whole legion around you...it's harder when it's just you and a companion pursued like animals by the men of a British village. He comes to know British people in the south and north (the south was conquered, the north free); a British girl being forced to live in the Roman way; his uncle, a retired Roman legionaire; and a wolf that is given to Aquila as a tiny puppy after its mom is killed by hunters.



The pup does more than more than any other part of the book in establishing the reader's trust in Aquila. Yes, a person may most certainly be evaluated by how he treats his dog. The pup also reinforces a main theme of the book--that love and trust must be a choice and cannot be enforced by ownership papers or leashes. Aquila gives the pup a clear opportunity to be free and still the puppy returns, with love, to stay with him.

The journey to the north to find the eagle also gives Aquila time to solve another critical life issue--what is he going to do with his life? An injury drove him from the only life he ever knew or wanted, a military career with the legion. The eagle quest is his hero journey, by which he comes to know himself truly as an adult. He gains talismans and loses treasures, but his greatest achievement is knowing his own future course.



Aquila's friend Esca deepens the theme of freedom. Esca, an unwilling gladiator, is saved and then purchased by Aquila as a slave. Their deepening friendship encounters many difficulties. The two men are from radically different cultures, social classes, and belief systems--all of which orbit around the central question: Can a free man and the slave he owns be friends? What can you ask a slave to do that you could not ask from a friend--and vice versa? Finding the answers to these questions is an important part of Aquila's growth, and also Esca's. Does being a slave determine your whole life?

But the best thing of all about this book is the writing. If it had been my book, and not the library's, I would have marked all over it to note the location of beautiful passages of prose. "He was desperately homesick for his own land; for now that they seemed lost to him, his own hills grew achingly dear, every detail of sight and scent and sound jewel-vivid on his memory." "Jewel-vivid." I am jealous of that phrase.

In discussing the phenomenon of being conquered, Esca says, "We know that your justice is more sure than ours, and when we rise against you, we see our hosts break against the discipline of your troops, as the sea breaks against a rock. And we do not understand, because all of these things are of the ordered pattern, and only the free curves of the shield-boss are real to us. We do not understand. And when the time comes that we begin to understand your world, too often we lose the understanding of our own." Beautifully put.

Esca, telling the story of the disappearance of the 9th legion, says, "But the mist was creeping down from the high moors, and the Legion marched into it, straight into it, and it licked them up and flowed together behind them, and they were gone as though they had marched from one world into--another."

Aquila's sacrifice of an emblem he has carried since childhood--a bird carved of olive wood--returns to the jewel imagery: "The golden sparks that he struck dropped onto the tinder-dry scraps of birch bark, and hung there an instant like jewels; then, as he blew on them, nursing them to life, they flared up into crackling flame; a flower of flame with the olive-wood bird sitting at its heart like a bird on her nest." Sutcliff's writing is like the sparks that catch and flare. Her command of detail give the book a sterling authenticity.

Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann Wyss, circa 1889

Papa contrived a boat of cut apart barrels--this illustration is close to how I imagined it.

Sometimes a book combines with what is going in my life to double its impact. Such was the case with Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann Wyss. The Robinsons’ unceasing earnest industry in surviving the shipwreck that left them stranded on an island matched the serious frenzy going on in my own life as my co-workers and I struggled to establish a new jobs program in three different communities. We (and the Robinsons) could rest, but only for a short time…the work goes on…the work goes on.

My colleagues and I are working toward a specific goal and we expect things to slow down in a few weeks. What’s striking about narrator Papa Robinson, however, is that he keeps working because work itself is a virtue, a human duty. The island is a challenge to be explored, harnessed, controlled, changed, mastered, conquered—and relentlessly. Every animal was seen as a food source to exploit or make use of. Every plant was seen in terms of its uses—beauty was a secondary benefit to the provision of shade, fruit, grain, or fiber. With the energy of the true Christian Soldier, Papa sets forth to bring order and productivity to the chaos of nature. It is a truly 19^th century zeitgeist. Man is at the top and he will rule.

Mama Robinson, referred to as “the wife” or “the mother,” supplied endless pots of food from the most exotic of ingredients as if by magic. She never grimaced when Papa and the boys (four of them) brought back something new to cook—like kangaroo meat, shark steaks, penguin, frog, monkey, bison, and bear. She too was inexhaustible in her energy, grinding manioc root into flour, making cloth (and food) from scratch, planting, reaping, and sowing (as well as sewing). Mama and Papa have a cooperative  relationship—in a few sweet scenes, they wake each other up before the boys to…no, not that…talk over their plans for the day, so as to show a united front. In another obscure item, Papa seems to reveal that he sleeps in his own room. Perhaps the Robinsons concluded that adding to their shipwrecked brood would cause hardship, although they took in baby animals of all sorts (to tame for use).

We only see Mama through Papa’s eyes—we see his view of her and of everything. Is Papa a reliable narrator? Has he glossed over the truly gruesome predicament that has befallen his family? Is everyone’s incessant good cheer and enthusiasm more what he wants to present to the world than what he actually experiences from his family?

I am going to default on this question, because it simply does not matter. This book is not serious. It is a somewhat sober tall tale, like Paul Bunyan if he had been brought up properly. The stories are preposterous and implausible, but terrific fun. I kept reading to see what wrongly situated animal or plant they would come across next, what invention would come from Papa’s fertile mind, what new landscape might appear on their infinite island. And, what animal would they tame next? (The ostrich trained for the saddle was a bit too much for me.) The book rollicked all over the place—all with hearty enthusiasm.

 
I guess training an ostrich is more plausible than I thought--this was not the only photo of domestication.

The introduction to the book, in fact, points out that Wyss told these stories in endless variations to entertain his children. One of the children gathered up the stories into a collection, which was then translated and re-translated until this semi-seminal English version was published and became the standard for the English-speaking world. (Note how favorably the English are presented at any mention of them in the book.) So, a narrative structure was actually imposed on the story, like chaining together the Paul Bunyan stories with an artificial narrative. So, please don’t take this book too seriously and try to have it make sense. It just won’t.

I also came to view this story as a fantasy. I thought of it in terms of the fantasy a desperate person might spin if faced with loss and death—as in a shipwreck. I imagine Papa, hungry, having lost everything, spinning out this one last fantasy in which all his sons survived and thrived; food was infinitely available; Mama was by his side; imagination had no constraints. I liked this perspective, but it’s just something I made up myself.

Papa’s philosophy (added, perhaps, some years after Wyss told the tales) is summed up in a paragraph in the final part of the book: “...my great wish is that young people who read this record of our lives and adventures should learn from it how admirably suited is the peaceful, industrious, and pious life of a cheerful, united family to the formation of strong, pure, and manly character.” What Victorian could argue with that?

I recommend this book highly—not as a moral tale of sober survival, but as a series of romps in a fantastical landscape. There are lessons to be learned, but please keep them subsidiary to the fun!

Go to www.tcm.com and enter "Swiss Family Robinson" in the search line for an interesting and funny article about the Disney's filming of this story.

Good Books: An American Freedom

  Probably one of my four copies of Pride and Prejudice

I went to the library this morning to pick up some books from interlibrary loan. It took two days for one book to arrive and three days for the other two. I saw that they were on loan from the Southeast Ohio library system and thought..."it is so cool that there is this gigantic stash of books available to whoever wants them, freely and with no restraint."

With good books in the passenger seat of my beat up old Honda, I felt a rush of wealth. I am wealthy in the availability of books of every description, as valuable to me as all the rubies, emeralds, and diamonds in the world, worth more to me than a Rolls Royce Phantom, enjoyed almost as much sometimes as my human relationships. I glory in this country's magnificent library system and the truly democratic institution that it is.

I live in a poverty-stricken rural area. People say, how can you live there, what is there for you, don't you miss city shopping and services? So far, no. The local library (Herbert Wescoat Memorial Library of McArthur, Ohio) is excellent and can get almost any book I ever want, from the most obscure scholarly tome to the next book on my children's reading list, Swiss Family Robinson. The librarians are professional and friendly, interested in my book choices, and glad to offer recommendations and opinions. The local library is an amazing treasure house of knowledge, entertainment, and, yes, freedom; it is a priceless jewel in a long, long strand of libraries across the United States.
If we could freely check out precious gems and elaborate jewelry, I think the stones would begin to loose their luster--and their value. They are, after all, crystals, minerals, and rocks and do not touch the mind or the heart. A book, however, exerts a hold over me that lasts as long as I live. The more that books are available, the more they are loved. In that sense, a book is like kindness--the more you pass it around, the more there is for everyone--not like those gems, which are hoarded and hidden.

Until recently, I had a book shelf where I kept "books to be rescured in case of fire." I have a sticker on my front storm door alerting firefighters to save my pets and I have always wanted one for my books. Maybe I just have an exaggerated attachment--the books I love I have read many, many times. At one time I had four different editions of Pride and Prejudice. Each book is an experience of life, of places, of history, of the solving of human conflicts.

And sometimes the books are plain old fun. One of my books, by Kate Wilhelm, is called Oh, Susannah! I picked up the book by accident, read it soon after, and was immediately smitten. It's what I call a "suitcase mystery"--a book where several identical suitcases keep getting switched accidently. Susannah is also a science fiction book in which the question of what makes someone have an identity is explored. It's also hilarious--leaving my cheeks streaming with laugh-tears. I've gotten hours and hours of pleasure from this slim volume. (Wilhelm, by the way, is an amazing writer across many genres--check her out.)

I recently reorganized my books, pruning out the dead wood, moving others to new places of prominence. I kept adding books to the shelf of books to be saved in case of fire...then it became two shelves, then three...and finally I realized that I needed to let go of my book class system. All the books I kept are created equal and equally important. Woe to the firefighters who come to my home. All books will be saved.

But, back to the freedom thing. I know that in many parts of the world literacy is low and books are unavailable. Or, the books that are available are filtered through a sieve of ideology, religion, or legislated morality. These places deprive their people of creativity, fascination, exploration, spirituality, humanity. If you are reading this blog, you are probably somewhat of a word person or a book person. Who would you have become if you hadn't had access to books? I cannot imagine myself in any form of existence without them. For this alone, I am a patriot and honor the founders of our nation who refused to set up any kind of orthodoxy of religion or ideology. We were to be free. We were to conduct our individual searches for meaning and identity. We were to sample of life's offerings in person or vicariously. We were to have books. And that makes us the wealthiest nation on earth.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien

While reading Fellowship of the Ring, I am totally lost in Middle Earth. I have been in the caves, on the mountains, in the trees, on the waters. My heart is filled with anxiety for characters I now love and for the success of the ring quest, the salvation of Middle Earth. As with The Hobbit, I am surprised at how engaging this book is. I have such hope and despair for the fellowship. The landscapes are rich, even the sere and lifeless. The time on the great river Anduin is so vivid I still feel as if water is under me. And the gorgeous/fearsome Galadriel is so beautifully drawn. Peter Jackson and Cate Blanchett did a wonderful job portraying her. This is the only well-developed female character so far. This is another of those guy-bonding stories…right in there with Deliverance and Animal House.

The balance between hope and despair is where my tension lies. None of the characters (even Gandalf) wants to go on this quest. None of them think it will succeed. Yet at every choice-point, there is resolution—the ring must go to Mordor and they are the ones that will take it. At each choice-point both the danger and the courage increase. And my heart seems to grow a bit wider open.

Frodo and the other Hobbits are less childlike in the book than in the Jackson movie. Merry and Pippin have solid adult skills. Sam is intelligent and skilled—it is part of his self-discovery to find that out. Frodo is self-reflective and therefore tragic. I am pulling for him and wish I could go to his side and bear the ring for him.

The ring itself is a major character in this book (and in the series, including The Hobbit). Sauron’s desire to get the ring back is only matched by the ring’s desire to be found by him. It has its own motivations. The one ring. Even this most basic description of the ring sounds ominous. The ring is treacherous and malevolent and pulls toward evil. The moment when Frodo steps forward in Elrond’s council to voluntarily take the ring is powerful. Is there ever a time when I would have that kind of courage?

Here’s a favorite quote of mine from Fellowship. Haldir says it in Chapter 6, “Lothlorien”: “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

Anyway, great story-telling, compelling settings, engaging characters, resonating themes—what more could a book want. (Oh yeah, a woman or two!) Somehow, the non-human characters are the most fully human. I can’t wait to start into The Two Towers—in about two minutes.

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott, 1825

Captain Picard as Richard--go figure.

The Talisman concludes the quartet of books by Sir Walter Scott on the list of children's literature I've been reading. On the whole, I can see why Scott was so wildly popular in Scotland and England in the early 19th century. His stories all involve bitter enemies, true love, aggressive action, wrongs unrighted, bad good people (like an evil priest) and good bad people (like a noble outlaw).

The Talisman continued Scott's habit of mistaken identity and disguise. Sir Kenneth, our hero, has at least four identities during the book, including, and ... I can't go on due to spoilers. Except for the royal family, consisting of King Richard (the Lion-Hearted) and his queen and Richard's cousin Edith, almost every principal character is either concealing something or is in concealment (disguise). (Even the king's most loyal servant talks in double meanings all the time.) It's fun! And in this book, each layer pealed off of Kenneth's identity took me totally by surprise. That's delightful for an old veteran reader like me. Especially in children's literature, I can often identify the surprises ahead of time.

The Talisman is set in the Middle East, probably Syria--certainly somewhere in the vicinity of Jerusalem, since that's where King Richard and his armies were headed. The Crusades. The Middle Ages (in the 1100s). King Richard led armies from several European nations on a holy quest to take Jerusalem back (back?) from the infidels (meaning the people who had always lived there?). Sir Kenneth is a loyal knight from Scotland, which places him at a disadvantage because Scots are scorned. Still he fights valiantly to establish a reputation for valor, courage, and honor. He fights for the love of his lady, Edith Plantagenet, who he loves from afar.

The book's backdrop is the disunity of the crusaders. The various countries get into power battles with each other and with Richard. Do they serve beside Richard, or do they serve under him? In the end, a final joust is held that decides the fate of many. To settle a dispute, a tournement is held far out in the desert; the result of the joust will reveal God's truth about the guilt or innocence of an accused (almost typed "accursed") knight.

Scot again presents a strange introduction to the book (all four books have strange introductions) in which he begs forgiveness for creating such an authentic piece of writing from his own imagination rather than from direct experience. He couldn't very well go back 700 years to verify his facts. But in spite of this, the settings in the book seem real. The descriptions of the desert landscape (see left, from the movie Lawrence of Arabia) and the tent city of the Crusaders and the costumes of the characters have a feel of authenticity, make a believable backdrop for Richard and Kenneth and the infidel characters also (Saladin, the doctor, others).

The difficulty of the two armies in understanding each other was almost comic, almost sad. The Christians knew their god, the Moslems knew theirs, and they had little real knowledge of each other. Their various religious practices were often seen through the eyes of someone from the opposite faith. Scott was relatively gentle with the infidels. He did not mock or condemn any of their practices. This is not a book for bigots. Take your faith as you find it and leave other people to find theirs, he seems to say. He holds a mirror up to both sides, and each is a bit embarrassed by what it sees of itself.

As usual, Scott's secondary characters are more interesting than his wooden and predictable main characters. An old hermit, a strange healer, a dwarf, even a dog, are painted beautifully. They weave into and out of the action like strands of gold thread in cloth.

I had trouble with King Richard, son of Henry II, absent monarch in the Robin Hood legends. I remember him so starkly from the movie Lion in Winter, with Peter O'Toole as Henry II and Katherine Hepburn as the queen, Eleanor of Aquitane. The secondary characters (and the secondary actors) paled next to Henry and Eleanor. Son Richard was portrayed as a brutal soldier, which was seen as a reaction against his implied homosexuality. That's Richard (Anthony Hopkins) at the right, with purported lover King Phillip. Richard was most governed by wrath. (Which, indeed, Scott did show in his book.) This makes it hard for me to see him as noble and lovable (nobody was lovable in Lion in Winter--everyone was pretty much a pig). Richard's brothers and parents are mentioned in the book, and I think to myself, "I knew what they looked like when they were young."

I also used Lawrence of Arabia, another Peter O'Toole movie, as a touchstone for the landscapes and peoples of the desert, the camels and caravans, oases and wastes. So, the creations of my mind added to and morphed with Scott's descriptions, taking the story even further into the world of the imagination, and at the same time made it more REAL! I must remember that the truth of imaginationo is true, but it is only one truth of many and not the whole truth of any.

Scott's writing got better as he aged. He was writing furiously at the time The Talisman was written, to publish enough to clear himself of debt. I think the speed helped him pick up the pace of his plot and descriptions. The Talisman was fully 100 pages shorter than the second and third books I read (Ivanhoe and Guy Mannering--Rob Roy was pretty short), but just as filled with action.

Women's roles? Meh. They live to inspire the men to deeds of duty and death. Edith is beautifully drawn as a demi-saint. Richard's queen is a little sex kitten who pouts at all the men. Alas. I crave the wonderful Rebecca from Ivanhoe, who was so real I could almost feel her heart beating.

Thumbs up, though, for The Talisman and for Sir Walter Scott. Reading these four books was a my own quest, my own crusade. Richard wanted to take Jerusalem; I want to get through my children's literature list before I die. We are both ennobled by our endeavors.

The Girl Effect and the Books I've Been Reading

Click on the link below to find out about The Girl Effect. It's maddening, inspiring, motivating. Today is the day for all bloggers to blog on this topic. Please excuse the self-indulgent/ranting quality to this off-the-cuff blog entry.

http://www.taramohr.com/girleffectposts/ 

I've been doing a pile of reading, and most of it is truly great stuff. But I always try to track the roles of girls and women in the material; in effect, to track the Girl Effect. In probably 80% of the books I've read in the past 2 years, female roles are passive, worshipworthy, ancillary, or non-existant. My most recent review is a case in point. The Hobbit and the Rings Trilogy, are books about guys, guy bonding. There are some important women's roles, maybe two (Eowyn and Galadriel), but for the most part women are minimized. There are no orc women, for example, and none of the elf warriors are women.

[RANT ALERT] In the most telling scene, able-bodied women are sent to hide in the caves while frail old men and wee boys are sent to fight. It's senseless! Faced with the end of humanity, half of the fighting force is sent to hide. This absurdity was picked up by Peter Jackson who shows the frightened faces of perfectly able women, helpless and segregated. None stand up to fight. Even Eowyn ends up in the caves. This is the ultimate in marginalization.

But I digress. What I find in my reading of children's literature is that even in books totally centered on girls, the books are more about training for stereotyped adult womanhood than they are about girls finding out how to do and be on their own terms. A case in point is Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables. She is highly flamboyant, one of a kind (oh that red hair!), but most of her drama focuses on problems of romance. Alone among many heroines, Anne holds out for a career--but only until she gets married. In the second to last book, so sadly, we find that Anne's writing is trivialized and she herself views it as unimportant, compared to making Gilbert and her children happy.

OK, ok, I'm not down-grading motherhood, wifeliness, or any of that. But why does it have to be all there is? Think of Nellie Bly sailing the oceans traversing many lands. She's seen as a footnote in history, if at all. After marriage, female achievement wanes, at least in most of the books on my list.

Another case in point is everyone's favorite, Laura Ingalls Wilder. She ends up deep in debt and deep in grief while Almonzo continues on his merry extravagances. It's not her place to complain to or correct her husband, repeating the pattern of her mother's life. But we block it out. No one remembers this part of the books.

I keep coming back to Pippi Longstocking. She's strong, inventive, smart, funny. It follows, then, that she is ugly, boyish, and somewhat of an outcast. Still, I'd rather go Pippi's way than Laura Wilder's or Anne Shirley's way. Ironically, one of the few books that I feel truly represents women as full characters, people of depth, was written by a man. I'm referring to Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet. The women in those four books are well drawn and full. They do not march lockstep down a pathway of expectations. And they bear their own consequences like men, or like people.

That's enough. I keep searching for value in the books I read, and most of them have plenty. The Rings Trilogy in particular is a fantastic piece of writing and leaves me richer and happier and sadder and so many other things. I laughed with Anne Shirley and wondered at the sights Laura saw. But I'm looking for just a little bit more, and if I find it, I'll be sure to let you know.

Tolkien, J. R. R., The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

http://the-hobbit-movie.com/   www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/

I’ve tried to read this book several times in my life and completed it one other time, but never really enjoyed or understood it until this time through. I’m not a natural to the fantasy genre, but I think my reading from this list (and Peter Jackson’s movies) has softened me up for it. And, if you’re going to read fantasy, Tolkien is excellent.

I found this book hard going. I dislike books where all of the characters have weird names, like Dwarg and Throen, and Oli and Tholi, or whatever (it’s always been a barrier between me and Russian literature!). And the action develops somewhat slowly. But, struggle as I did to read, I found that I was carrying the book and characters in my mind throughout the day. The quest and the dilemma of Bilbo were with me, and the fabulously decadent, decayed, overgrown, or sere landscapes, too. The dark Mirkwood, the hideous spiders, the lightless caves, and on and on, stayed with me, have become part of me.

I can close my eyes and see Gollum on his island deep within the caves, his eyes glowing. I can see the dragon sleeping among its treasure. One of my favorite scenes is when the dwarfs are sent down river in big barrels. The irony is precious for the drawfs, who so enjoy whatever is generally in a barrel, to be in them themselves.

The story is classic—a treasure quest during which the hero (Bilbo) finds new aspects to his character and learns to view his own and other cultures through each other’s eyes. He falls upon his own wits and passes through every test. One of favorite things is the book’s theme of either turning a disaster into a victory or finding that the decision you thought was bad was indeed the right one. And Bilbo ends up with the ultimate possession--the ring of power.

Gandalf is present infrequently in this book, but, like all good god characters (Aslan of Chronicles of Narnia, for example), you sense and are reminded of his presence from time to time, which gives you security that if the worst happens, someone will intervene. Then, the reader is surprised/delighted to find that Bilbo was for the most part sufficient. (Bilbo is surprised too!) Don’t wait for a god when you have your own wits about you. (I can imagine the arguments now between Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.) Anyway, a higher recommend than I expected for The Hobbit. I can’t wait to see Peter Jackson’s take on the story.

Guy Mannering, by Sir Walter Scott, 1815

A Dandie Dinmont Terrier; the breed's name derives from one

of the characters in Guy Mannering who keeps such dogs.

 

Guy Mannering is truly the book for me. The edition I read (from Herbie Wescoat) has an introduction, notes at the back, footnotes, a glossary of Scottish dialect, and an index! Returning readers to my blog will know that useful front and end matter are a rare treat for me. Yum. Not-so-yum for the introduction, though. It is rambling and for the most part disconnected from the book itself, although it claims to give the sources for the basic plot.

Guy Mannering itself is interesting and has some terrific characters, but the writing is just too stretchy for me. As in Ivanhoe, the dialogue was over-long and too detailed. I had a great urge for characters to get to the point already. It is a book of action, with way too many words between. The plot is at root a romance--the featured lovers face great obstacles and the getting over of them is the work of the book. The title character Guy Mannering is not the romantic hero and in fact has no love interest (like love is only for youth). He is a background figure who crosses paths with the hero, Harry Bertram, several times, but never on purpose. Bertram was kidnapped at age five and grew up unaware of his true identity. In India, he meets and falls in love with Mannering's daughter Julia. He follows the Mannerings to England and then Scotland, where he seeks the means to openly court Julia.

Bertram undergoes ordeals and trials upon his journey, to the point at which he has but the clothing on his back, no friends, and no means of establishing his identity--neither the identity he knows (Vanbeest Brown) nor the one he doesn't (Harry Bertram). In true hero-journey fashion, his deeds along the journey earn him friends and information that help him through the dark night of imprisonment and into the sunny day of a hearty inheritance. I wouldn't disclose these events if they weren't so obvious in the romance formula.

Meanwhile, back in Scotland...Bertram's father was tricked into selling all of the family property to a slimy villain named Glossin. One of the most moving scenes of the book takes place on the day the property transfer takes place. Old Bertram and his daughter are seated on a hill watching as the neighbors from miles around go through their home putting offers on their worldly goods. Except for Meg Merillies, Bertram's daughter and the other female characters are not very important to the plot, except as objects for men to fight for and fight over. They do not direct the action in their own lives to any degree.

As in the other two Scott books I've read, the side characters are truly engaging--real scene stealers. My favorite is Meg Merrilies, a gypsy witch goddess of great height and abilities. She is so old that no one remembers when she wasn't old, and she has a longer attachment to the Bertram land than any of the Bertrams even though she has never owned any of it. Meg directs the action at key points and is one of most important characters in the book. I can't believe no woman has ever made a movie of this book just to get that role. The gypsies, in general, are a shadow population that Meg can bring to bear at certain times and places. Go to www.allpoetry.com and search for the poem "Meg Merrilies" by John Keats. The poem is much more romantic than the hard-edged Meg in Guy Mannering.

 Meg Merrilies in a stage portrayal, 1855

Another great character is Dandie Dinmont. Yes...the dog breed was actually named after this character. Farmer Dinmont does raise dogs, but his larger role is as a supporter of Harry Bertram. Dinmont is also larger than large, large appetites and large loyalties. Harry saves his life and thereby gains lifelong friendship. Like Meg, Dinmont gains credibility from his relationship with the land.

A third secondary character (third secondary!) is Dominie Sampson, teacher to Harry before his kidnapping and faithful servant of the Bertram family through good times and bad. I can't even explain him--he's tongue-tied and stammering most of the time, yet his loyalty to the Bertrams ennobles him--and people who "get" him are thus identified as good. Guy Mannering takes immediate liking to Dominie. Sampson's key role in the story (in plot terms only) is as someone who can verify the story of Harry's kidnapping and establish his identity when he returns to Scotland.

The fourth terrific character is Pleydell, the attorney. The scenes between Pleydell and Guy Mannering are wonderful and funny and crisp, in great contrast to much of the narrative.

All in all, I liked Guy Mannering, but if it hadn't been on the book list I am sworn to read, I don't know if I would have stuck with it. It was very popular when published, so maybe I am too used to sound bites and short swallowable chapters (Patterson!) and facebook posts and sitcom length narratives to really enjoy reading at the leisurely pace this book enforced. I do know that the characters will live with me forever and that I've had Meg Merillies as a role model long before I met her in print! I have one more Scott book to read, written much later than this one. I'll be interested to see if Scott's style changed over time.

Anne of Green Gables Series, books 3 and 4, by L.M. Montgomery

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

Montgomery, L. M., Anne of the Island

Anne continues to grow up, getting into and out of scrapes and troubles. The death of friend Ruby is sweetly portrayed. Diana gets married. Anne sees people moving on with their lives. Where is hers going? The book covers Anne’s college years, during which she gets a B.A. She and Gilbert are estranged, she having rejected his marriage proposal. Royal Gardner shows up—Anne’s perfect romantic hero made flesh, wealthy, poetic, devoted. Her struggles with love are sweet and refreshing. She really has to process all the romantic imagery she has structured around love. Many new characters. Many new adventures. The relationship between Anne and Gilbert is finally settled.

A touching passage occurs when Anne returns to the house in which she was born and meets people who knew her parents. Letting Anne settle into her identity and heritage is important psychological business handled in this book.

One thing charmingly rendered is the “you can’t go home again” cliché. Anne returns for the summer every year and every year feels a little less like Avonlea is “her” place. She learns to cope with changes—good and bad. She is conscious of having gained much, but also having to give things up in the bargain.

Overall, I am liking this series. I get impatient waiting for something to happen, for a story arc that isn’t there. The plot across books is chronologically episodic. And that is the theme: what happens as a girl grows up. I’m at least engaged enough to be eager to read the next book. Will a story arc emerge? Will anything really awful happen to Anne—something that her natural optimism and the power of love cannot handle? So far, there always seems to be a cushion under Anne’s disasters and troubles. I’ll let you know.

WEB LINKS
A good source for PEI travel and tourism, which incorporates many Anne of Green Gables sites, is www.krolltravel.com. Also, see www.gov.pe.ca.

Montgomery, L. M., Anne of Windy Poplars

Fourth book. The franchise is wearing a bit thin. Windy Poplars is an episodic account of various irascible characters Anne meets when she teaches for three years at Summerside High School. It is narrated about 50% by letters and 50% third person. Rapturous descriptions of landscape abound. I’m getting a little tired of it. Anne is getting to be JUST TOO CUTE. She brings sunshine and solutions wherever she goes and match-makes like crazy. Marriage is certainly the key to happiness for women. She reunites the ununited, weds the unwed, de-crankifies the cranky, unsaddens the sad. But Anne herself is static in this book. She starts out wonderful and stays wonderful. And, I do like her, thank goodness. But the book is more a series of vignettes than a coherent plot.

Anne corresponds with fiancé Gilbert, gushing occasionally. But Gilbert doesn’t really show up—I don’t think he has a single line of dialogue. And Green Gables is mostly absent. And it’s Green Gables that glues it together for me.

This book was a struggle to get through. My eyes glazed over many times. At least in the next book, Anne’s wedding and marriage should provide good meat for my palate.

WEB LINK
For information about the musical "Anne and Gilbert," which is based on these two books, please see www.anneandgilbert.com.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry, 1993

You'll understand the cover by the end of the book.


The Giver is a John Newbery Medal winner--a high honor for children's fiction. People from about age 10 on up would enjoy and appreciate it. The hero is 12 years old.

Jonas is a happy 11-year-old, fits in well with his peers, has a happy home life. His only worry is that at age 12, a job assignment will be given to him and he doesn't have a particular feeling about what it will be. He seems  interested in everything, but not too interested in anything. Then he starts to have strange moments when things look different. He doesn't know how to describe it. And he knows it would make him seem odd. Odd is not good. Sameness is good.

The community in which Jonas has grown up is committed to Sameness. All of its laws and traditions enforce the principal that Sameness is good, stability is good, predictability is good. Highs and lows, likes and dislikes, even extreme language is censored. When Jonas's friend Asher uses a colorful word, he is corrected immediately by his teacher:

"...once again you have provided an opportunity for a lesson in language. 'Distraught' is too strong an adjective to describe [your experience].' He turned and wrote 'distraught' on the instructional board. Beside it he wrote 'distracted.'

Gradually, the ground rules of Jonas's community emerge. Any feelings that do arise among the limited lives of the citizens are talked away in a bizarre sort of rational-emotive or cognitive therapy. When Jonas's sister Lily talks about a bad experience at school, her parents politely "unpack" it for her, validating and then eliminating her feelings. When Jonas's mother relates a stressful encounter at work,

Lily [Jonas's sister] stood up and went to her mother. She stroked her mother's arm. From his place at the table, Father reached over and took her hand. Jonas reached for the other. One by one, they comforted her. Soon she smiled, thanked them, and murmured that she felt soothed.

This sounds good. My family could have used a dose of these strategies. But the reader discovers that things in this place are just a bit too soothed, a bit too regulated. Clothing is doled out based on age and occupation. Bicycles are strictly governed as to when you can get one and what kind it is. A P.A. system filters instructions and cautions to the whole community. Occupations are chosen for children when the turn 12, which they do all at once together in December. Individual birthdays are not celebrated. When people get to be a certain age they are retired to Old People Homes. And, at the right time, they are "released."

Jonas sees some of the inconsistencies in philosophy of his group, but, like a good citizen, he dismisses them thoroughly--until his group's twelfth birthday. His occupational assignment is astounding, and gives him a new and frightening look at the principles governing his life. Thus is the utopian community exposed.

I don't want to keep going, because I am getting too close to spoilers, and some of plot turns made me gasp. I will say, however, that this is a really good book. It reads quickly and well...just slow enough at first to get your buy-in for the Sameness culture, and then speeding up as Jonas's insights come crowding in. Here is a picture that sums up the whole book:



The Giver, by providing contrast, explains and softens some of the hideous things that don't happen in Sameness--brutal death, sickness, starvation, cruelty. Because to wipe those out wipes out happy life, wellness, fullness, and love. Jonas's culture decided that the trade-off was worth it.

The book is inconclusive in its ending. However, there are two sequels, Gathering Blue and Messenger. I will be reading them to see how the dilemmas established by The Giver can ever be resolved.

Best bits: When Jonas discovers snow by experiencing it before he has words for it. Really cool.

Gripe: OK, so it's a utopia. So, it must be fatally flawed. No one ever gets it right. Yep, here comes a person vs. nature, person vs. machine, person vs. control book. The utopia will be exposed, every time. In books where a utopia is built, it is the end of the book. There is no plot line to pursue in a utopia. That's just sad. But it happens all the time. The grand structure of Aragorn's utopia in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, is summed up in a couple of paragraphs; the great achievement is way more interesting in the becoming than in the being. I used to argue all the time with people who claim that suffering is good because it teaches you things. Can't we learn more through happy experiences? It doesn't seem to be the way of the West. I've given up the argument. Now, past 50, it's not worth the bother. And people who don't suffer do seem sort of shallow. Who knows... Anyway, the plot has been done before, ad nauseum. It probably gets repeated because it works. In this book, it is masterfully done.

Physical Description: Traditional paperback size; limited front and end matter, but has printing on inside of front and back cover; 23 chapters (ouch, a prime number) in 179 pages; intriguing cover (see above) featuring seal of Newbery.

Smokin' Seventeen, by Janet Evanovich, 2011

I was embarrassed more than a couple of times by laughing out loud while reading this book in public places. Evanovich writes a truly funny murder mystery. It’s like Starsky & Hutch change genders and combine with Larry, Curly, and Moe. Evanovich’s hero and first-person narrator, Stephanie Plum, makes her seventeenth appearance in this book and it is quite a romp. The Starsky to Stephanie’s Hutch is a well-rounded ex-hooker named Lula.

Stephanie apprehends fugitives for a bail bonds agency. Sounds hot. Sounds glamorous. But in Evanovich’s skewed worldview, the fugitives turn out to be a feeble old man who thinks he’s a vampire, a truly stupid convenience store robber, and, yes, a trained bear. Her weapons include a handgun, but also a stun gun, sauerkraut, and the spiked heel of a shoe.

HowStuffWorks "How Stun Guns Work

Stephanie’s romantic escapades involve a mysterious thug-turned-security-expert and a hunky police officer. She is being pressured by her parents (and the cop’s grandmother) to make some sort of decision between the two. The grandmother is old-world and puts the Evil Eye and various curses on Stephanie. Stephanie’s parents introduce a third suitor for Stephanie’s hand, adding to the complications and to Stephanie’s guilt over not being able to make a choice. Lots of healthy sex only adds to the confusion.

And, oh yes, there is a murder mystery going on also. Dead bodies keep turning up and they keep getting closer and closer to Stephanie. Thank you, Janet Evanovich, for not turning Stephanie into one of those detective-as-victim women that seem so prevalent in contemporary women’s detective fiction. Stephanie goes right on out to find the guy, and she’s pretty tough about it. I won’t go into details. A book review always flirts with spoilers, but I do my best to preserve the book’s surprises.

Evanovich also manages my other pet peeve—the amount of time an author spends updating all the characters in a continuing series. Evanovich got it done, but I didn’t notice it. Her updates were all cleanly integrated into the narrative.

My favorite element of Smokin’ Seventeen is Stephanie’s voice. As a first-person narrator, she is fresh, funny, frank, and distinctive. (Sorry, couldn’t think of another f-word.) Stephanie quickly becomes a friend, a pal, who lets you in on her strange and sordid adventures in the land of petty crime.

The setting of the book is confined to a set of neighborhoods in Trenton, New Jersey, in which Stephanie grew up. Her first step in locating a bail jumper is to call some friend of her mom’s who she knows will help locate the perp. The crimes and criminals are petty and grimy and often plain old stupid. Stephanie scrapes out a living one outrageous felon at a time. Her friends, family, and co-workers are wacky and distinct. The whole concept is pretty far out of the realm of normal, but instead of distancing me from the book, I could totally relate. The privately narrated story of anyone’s life is probably pretty strange—the indecisions, contradictions, paradoxes, competing drives. They make Stephanie easy to relate to, sort of an everywoman, in a blue collar sort of way.

You can tell that I loved this book. It’s a good quick read. It’s tremendously funny. Please check it out from your library and enjoy.

Best bits: The imagination of the author, which takes the action in directions unexpected. And the writing is top grade. I never questioned the plausibility of any sequence. Here’s a sample:

I sidled up to Merlin and the man standing behind him elbowed me aside…Merlin looked over his shoulder at me, and recognition registered. I reached out to stun gun him, he batted my arm away, and the stun gun flew off into space. By the time I retrieved my stun gun Merlin…was already... leaving the lot. I was holding a lot of anger, and it was directed at the idiot who elbowed me aside. I casually sidled up to him and accidentally stun gunned him. He went down to the floor, wet his pants, and I felt much better.

Special favorite item: Watch out for the granny panties.

Trouble spots: Every single element of the book ended up having relevance by the end of the book (masterfully done), but I couldn’t keep track of every octopussian plot line. I couldn’t figure out who Regina Bugle was and why she was tailing Stephanie. So keep your eyes open, folks.

Physical features: Nicely book-sized, not much fuss in the front and end matter; 39 chapters, 308 pages. Adequate layout and typography (book club books don’t generally push the edges of design).