UTOPIA

Wow, what made me take on this 1516 tale? This is the original Utopia that bred many utopian and dystopian novels over the years since (and is still breeding). Sir Thomas More originally wrote this political philosophy book in Latin. My review might be a tad foggy on details because of old words (such as, methought, counseleth, howbeit, resteth and methinketh) used in this novel. The sentences and paragraphs are very lengthy written in a somewhat old/middle English language. The novel opens in Antwerp, Belgium. Three people are having a discussion: Sir Thomas More, Peter Gilles (town clerk), and a peculiar gentleman named Raphael Hythloday who says that he sailed with Amerigo Vespucci (remember him?) to the New World and then traveled further spending five years on an island that he says is called Utopia. Before Raphael tells them about Utopia, he rants and raves about all the injustices in Europe. He doesn’t think too much of Kings, who start wars for no reason and spend the people’s money. He also thinks that a sentence of death for theft is insane. Why should a thief get the same sentence as a murderer? The thief should then murder his victim so there is no witness or accuser. On page 34, Raphael says, “God commandeth us that we shall not kill. And be we then so hasty to kill a man for taking a little money?” On page 35, he continues, “Therefore, whiles we go about with such cruelty to make thieves afraid, we provoke them to kill good men.”

After Raphael is finished with his declaiming of the European style of life, Sir Thomas More says, “Therefore, gentle Master Raphael, I pray you and beseech you describe unto us the island. And study not to be short, but declare largely in order their grounds, their rivers, their cities, their people, their manners, their ordinances, their laws, and to be short, all things that you shall think us desirous to know. And you shall think us desirous to know whatsoever we know not yet.” Raphael agrees to tell them all they want to know, but first he wants to break for dinner. Thomas More says, “Let us go in, therefore to dinner; afterward we will bestow the time at our pleasure.” The end of the first book. I have to say that my desire to continue reading was challenged at this juncture. But I had two good reasons to persist: first of all, this novel is considered a classic and secondly, the foremost section (about Utopia) was still to come. There are many novels that are more difficult to read than Utopia, such as A Tale of a Tub written by Jonathan Swift in 1694 or Finnegans Wake written by James Joyce in 1939. Look these novels up and you will see what I mean when I say they are difficult.

So after dinner, Raphael tells Sir Thomas More and Gilles what he knows about Utopia. Basically, the island was formed when King Utopos had a 15 mile wide channel dug to separate from the mainland. Raphael says there are 54 cities, each city divided into four parts. The capital is Amaurot, located in the middle of the island. Each city has 6,000 households, every 30 households are grouped together. Houses are rotated between citizens every ten years. There isn’t any private property, no locks on doors, and each family has two bondsmen (slaves). Agriculture is the most important job on the island (everyone must participate). On page 63, Raphael says, “No household or farm in the country hath fewer than forty persons, men and women, besides two bondsmen, which under the rule and order of the good man and the good wife of the house, being both very sage, discreet, and ancient persons. And every thirty farms or families have one head ruler, which is called a phylarch, being as it were a head bailiff.” As I read this novel, it seemed to me that the Utopians employed a political system that was part socialism and part communism. On page 70, Raphael says, “Husbandry is a science common to them all in general, both men and women, wherein they all be expert and cunning. Besides husbandry, which (as I said) is common to the all, every one of them learneth one or other several and particular science as his own proper craft.” In other words, every citizen had to have another vocation other than farming.

As I read this novel, I realized that there was no plot to this tale. The entire novel seemed to be a structure or plan for future utopian societies or novels. I guess there has to be a start to everything, but did Sir Thomas More know almost 500 years ago that he just coined a word and theme that would be used so often in the future? Obviously not. So what were some other rules for the citizens of Utopia? I thought you would never ask. Well, the work day was six hours (not bad), everybody wore the same clothes, ate in a community dining room, and had no desire for gold or silver. As a matter of fact, children wore jewelry until adulthood, and bondsmen (slaves) wore gold chains. Any religion seemed acceptable, however Atheist were deplored but not shunned. Women had to confess their transgressions to their spouses every month. Wow, I don’t think that would fly in today’s world. Whereas Utopians would go to war if required (against or supporting other countries), they really didn’t want to kill anyone; capturing was preferred. I will let the other rules and the rest of the tale be discovered by any willing readers. I wondered why Sir Thomas More wrote this book. Probably because he was not happy with the political structure in Europe. Was he using Raphael’s rant in book one to show his displeasure? Was he highlighting a type of socialism that now shapes a lot of Europe in The end of the second book?

This novel was some trip. I did struggle with the old/middle English language at times, but it was worth it. I believe to be a well rounded reviewer, one must read books that test his/hers fortitude. Yes, I recommend this novel. I leave you with Sir Thomas More’s last lines, “Thus endeth the afternoon’s talk of Raphael Hythloday concerning the laws and institutions of the island of Utopia.”

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Sir Thomas More was beheaded on 7/6/1535. What! Yes, he refused the King’s separation from the Catholic church. In 1533 he refused to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn as Queen of England. He refused to take the Oath of Supremacy and discerned the Protestant religion as heresy. Pope Leo XIII beatified Thomas More on 12/29/1886 and Pope Pius XI canonized Thomas More on 5/19/1935. Sir Thomas More’s head was mounted on a pike for a month on top of the London Bridge. Ouch!

The troubles for Sir Thomas More during 1529-1535 are chronicled in the Academy Award winning movie A Man for All Seasons (1966) starring Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More. The movie won six Academy Awards, including Best Movie, Best Director and Best Actor.

Now in my last review (Rarity from the Hollow), I said that I would reveal thegreatestbooks.org’s next five greatest books (#6 through #10). So here they are:

6) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Epic in scale, War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events leading up to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.
7) The Odyssey by Homer. The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer.
8) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The novel chronicles an era that Fitzgerald himself dubbed the “Jazz Age.”
9) The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Belonging in the immortal company of the great works of literature.
10) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. For daring to peer into the heart of an adulteress and enumerate its contents with profound dispassion.

Well okay, in the comment section of my next review, I’ll list numbers 11 through 15 (maybe).

The Movie Poster:

Rarity from the Hollow

The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:

To say the least, this novel was different. Knowing that Robert Eggleton is a spokesperson for impoverished children that have suffered physical and sexual abuse, I wasn’t sure how to interpret his story. In numerous ways, he exposed child and spousal abuse, yet he seemed to spend a lot of pages on ostensible pedophile innuendos between an eleven (thirteen by the end of the story) year old girl and a mature android, who was becoming more human as the novel progressed. And the kicker is that the novel was funny. Go figure. The author makes it very clear that his novel is not for YA readers, yet how do you keep it out of their hands. He says his work is out of the Social science fiction genre originated by Ursula K. Le Guin in the 1970s (read The Left Hand of Darkness, published in 1969). Eggleton’s novel was an thought-provoking read with some semi-minor flaws, which I will get to in my last paragraph.

Lacy Dawn is a impoverished and abused fifth grader living in West Virginia. Her father suffers from a psychological problem and tends to beat Lacy and her mother, Jenny, with a switch (branch). Lacy Dawn talks to the trees in the forest as well as her dead best friend, Faith. I was never sure if she was having real conversations, or make-believing. Anyway she floats above the ground (again, real or not?) most days to get learned (now I sound like a hick) by an android that she has been visiting since she was six years old. His name is DotCom, a.k.a. Bucky or Buddy, who has had a spaceship hidden in a cave for several thousand years. She apparently has a port (in her back?) that gets attached to a monitor that teaches her more than she can learn in school. DotCom promises to fix her parents and instructs her to have her dog, Brownie, dig a ditch to the house as Lacy Dawn lays a cable. The cable gets attached to her parents and cures them of their unhappy life. Has DotCom been tweaking Lacy Dawn’s genetic history for thousands of years in order to ready her for a mission to save the universe? Yes.

Lacy Dawn’s father, Dwayne, gets a good job from his "pot" growing neighbor Tom. Dwayne and his family start to thrive. DotCom suddenly leaves for a year. He finally comes back only to be discovered by Lacy Dawn’s mom, Jenny. Now two people know about the android. DotCom takes Lacy Dawn and her mom to his home planet, Shptiludrp (shop till you drop), which is a monstrous mall, managed by a Mr. Prump, who is the most powerful being in the universe. Jenny gets her bad teeth fixed and returns to Earth where Dwayne falls back-in love with his wife. Now all three go to Dotcom’s planet to find out what Lacy Dawn’s mission will be. They don’t find out but impress Mr. Prump by setting the record for their shopping skills. They are now celebrities on Shptiludrp and are hounded by autograph seekers. Is this a crazy story, or what? The ensuing chapters tell the rest of this somewhat convoluted tale. You will have to buy your own copy of this novel to find out how it ends (you have no chance guessing the ending).

Now for the flaws. First of all, The reader had to wade through too many chapters of boring shopping sprees before finding out what Lacy Dawn’s “universe saving” mission was. Second of all, there was way too much prose involving DotCom’s erections and Lacy Dawn’s panties. These two foibles stopped me from giving this novel a five star rating. Did I think the novel was intriguing? Yes, I did. But I’m not completely sold on the novel’s genre. However, I do recommend reading this marginally avant-garde novel.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Obviously, Eggleton’s novel is the first in a series, since at the book’s end he states, “The end of this Adventure.” Doesn’t any new writer pen a singleton anymore? Almost all the books that I receive are...To be continued. There is nothing wrong with that, but the next great American novel will not come out of any serial story. Is there any accomplished reader out there that can rate the top five books of all time? Well there is thegreatestbooks.org who think they can. Here are their top five:

1. In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust. Marcel Proust’s seven-part cycle, was published in 1913.
2. Ulysses, by James Joyce. Ulysses chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, June 16, 1904.
3. Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes. Alonso Quixano, a retired country gentleman in his fifties, lives in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and a housekeeper. He has become obsessed with books of chivalry.
4. Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. First published in 1851, Melville’s masterpiece is, in Elizabeth Hardwick’s words, “The greatest novel in American literature.”
5. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by Shakespeare believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601.

That is a powerful top five, debatable of course, but what about numbers six through ten? Ah, they will be listed in the comment section of my next review.

The Nightingale

Kristin Hannah has written a significant novel concerning the German occupation of the town of Carriveau, France during WWII. Kristin highlights the lives of Vianne Mauriac (who twice had German officers billeted at her home: one a somewhat gentleman, the other a nightmare) and her rebellious younger sister Isabelle, who eventually joins the French Resistance and acquires the code name...The Nightingale. With Kristin holding the number of main characters to about six people, she created great empathy for all involved. This novel was the most sentimental and tragic story that I’ve read in along time. Of course all books or novels involving the German occupation are sad, but this novel is noteworthy. I recently read Tilar J. Mazzeo’s The Hotel on Place Vendome (see my review of 5/4/2014) and Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See (see my review of 12/30/2014). Although these novels were very engaging, they didn’t leave me with the woebegone feeling that I had when I finished Kristin Hannah’s novel. Great job, Kristin. Okay, enough...what’s the story about?

In 1939 France, war is in the air. Vianne, her husband Antoine, and their daughter Sophie enjoy life in the country until Antoine gets notice from the Vichy government headed by Marshal Phillippe Petain (WWI hero) that he is in the army now. Vianne can’t believe that the Germans will invade France, but they do. Marshall Petain, for some undefined reason, gives in quickly. Meanwhile, Vianne’s sister is expelled from school again. Isabelle became rebellious after her and Vianne’s mother died, and as their father lost interest in them, she began to drink heavily. Isabelle leaves her father and Paris to move in with Vianne. On her way to Carriveau, the Germans drop bombs and Isabelle meets Gaetan, a French Resistor who thinks she is too young to fight. Isabelle arrives at Vianne’s home the same time the Germans arrive in town. They are in the “occupied zone”, while the surrendering Marshall Petain is in the German friendly “free zone”. A German Captain Beck decides to billet at the sister’s home. He tells Vianne that her husband Antoine is a POW and she will never see him again. Isabelle is defiant to Capt. Beck, while Vianne wants no trouble in the house in order to protect her daughter Sophie.

Isabelle meets French Communist Resistor, Henri Navarre, who talks her into secretly distributing “mutinous flyers” from Gen. de Gaulle, who is operating out of London. Vianne, a local teacher, is asked by Capt. Beck to list the names of the teachers at her school who are Jews, Communist, Homosexuals, Freemasons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Not wanting trouble, Vianne gives him the names including the name of her best friend and neighbor Rachel who is a Jew. She regrets giving Rachel’s name to Captain Beck but realizes that he would have found out anyway, which would have caused her family grief. Isabelle heads to Paris to get involved in the French Resistance and moves in with her father who objects. On page 161, “she had delivered her first secret message for the Free French.” Isabelle is now using the name, Juliette Gervaise and her contact is a weird woman named Anouk. When Isabelle finds a downed RAF pilot, her modus operandi is born. This is where the story ignites all the way to the finish line.

There is so much sadness in the ensuing pages, but also a feeling of satisfaction as the French underground continues to befuddle the Germans. There is so much to tell the readers that I wish this was a book report instead of a book review. But the good thing is that the readers can now go out and get themselves a copy of Kristin Hannah’s scintillating novel to read over and over again. This is the best novel that I’ve read this year, but we still have almost three months left this year. As Vianne might say, “nous verrons.” (we shall see.)

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Probably the most definitive book about the occupation of France is the seldom read, Occupied France: Collaboration And Resistance 1940-1944, written in 1991 by Roderick Kedward. Teaching History said, “A splendid book. It provides an admirably concise narrative of the major events and personalities that shaped the experience of collaboration and resistance in France between 1940 and 1944…” Hmm, why is the book seldom read?

Another book that highlights the courage of the French woman is Caroline Moorehead’s 2012 book, A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France. Amazon.com says, “In January 1943, 230 woman of the French Resistance were sent to the death camps by the Nazis who had invaded and occupied their country. This is their story, told in full for the first time-a searing and unforgettable chronicle of terror, courage, defiance, survival and the power of friendship.”

You can bet your sweet bippy that Kristin Hannah read both of these books before writing her epic novel. Does anybody know what a bippy is? It was used many times on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In TV show. I think it is a euphemism for ass!  

DEAD WAKE

The British luxury liner Lusitania’s last crossing (5/01/1915) of the Atlantic Ocean is documented by Erik Larson, but in his narrative nonfiction way. What I mean by that is Mr. Larson has turned a history book story into a tear-jerking, cliff-hanging saga that seems to read like fiction, but is not. How did he do that? I read Diana Preston’s Lusitania (see my review of 6/30/2012) previously, but her version, although an excellent book, contained so much factual information that I was never able to warm up to the individual victims she highlighted. By the way, the authors mostly focused on different passengers aboard the Lusitania (which I will call Lucy for the rest of the review).
 
What almost brought tears to my eyes was how the British Admiralty (headed by Winston Churchill) seemed to want a tragedy to happen involving Americans traveling on British luxury liners to England. On page 190, Churchill says, “For our part, we want the traffic-the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better still.” And King George V said to Colonel House, acting as President Wilson’s emissary, “Suppose they (the Germans) should sink the Lusitania with American passengers aboard?” (implying that the USA would finally be forced to enter WWI).

Meanwhile President Wilson, a recent widower, was spending his time romancing Edith Galt. Is this outrageous behavior, or what? But the most puzzling fact of the European war against Germany was the supposed success of the British in establishing Room 40 in order to decode all German submarine chatter. And they did. So why didn’t they use this advantage to warn Lucy of the ship’s impending doom? Because, they couldn’t warn every ship of the German sub activity since the Germans would then know that the British had broken their code. What! Maybe they did warn Lucy, but the information was too late in getting there. And where was the promised British naval escort when Lucy got close to port?

Before Lucy started for England, the Germans put ads in NYC papers warning passengers of possible impending destruction of the ship. Basically the ads said, “Notice! TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles…” If you saw the ad (a lot of passengers did not), it would take a great deal of courage to board any ship heading to Great Britain. Larson’s early chapters set the tone for the intense chroniclization (is that a word?) of Lucy’s voyage yet to come.

Some of the passengers were famous, such as: Charles Frohman, a theater impresario; George Kessler, a wealthy wine importer; Alfred Vanderbilt, son of Cornelius; Elbert Hubbard, author; Charles Lauriat, a book dealer carrying Charles Dickens’s original A Christmas Carol and original drawings from William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair;  and, Theodate Pope, a wealthy female architect and suffragist. The passengers and crew totaled 1,959, including a record number of children and infants. The American passengers were well into the multiple of hundreds. By the time Lucy left for England, Room 40 decoded German transmissions and knew that Unterseeboot-20, captained by Walther Schwieger was heading out to sea towards Liverpool looking to sink as much tonnage as possible (Lucy was their main objective), but Room 40 was focusing on another ship they thought was more valuable to Great Britain.

What kind of a man was Kapitanleutnant Schwieger? Well, once out to sea he spotted a Danish passenger liner out of Copenhagen, bound for Montreal. He couldn’t attack because the ship was too far away and moving fast. But in his log, he wrote, “An attack on this ship impossible.” But, “The entry revealed as well that he had no misgivings about torpedoing a liner full of civilians.” Germany’s Chancellor Bethmann wanted U-boat attacks on neutrals stopped before these attacks caused the neutrals to join the war against Germany. But he was overruled by Kaiser Wilhelm II (King George V’s cousin, believe it or not).

So what kind of man was the captain of Lucy, fifty eight year old Thomas Turner? He was a man determined to spend all his time running the ship. He was so focused on the management of the ship that the Cunard Line had to make Jack Anderson the Staff Captain (a new classification). The Staff Captain mingled amongst the high paying customers and had dinner with them at the Captain’s Table. Turner was a veteran sailor that worked his way up the ranks. He was highly capable of bringing the ship safely to England. He maneuvered the ship safely within 11-15 miles off the coast of Ireland while under the cover of heavy fog (a good thing).

Simultaneously, Walther Schwieger’s U-boat was running low on fuel and torpedoes so he decides to head home in the heavy fog. Luckily for him in the fog, a British armored cruiser passes directly over him undetected. Suddenly the fog lifted. “Schwieger trained his binoculars-his Zeiss ‘godseyes’-on a smudge at the horizon and was startled to see ‘a forest of masts and stacks.” This is trouble for Lucy. “Then I saw it was a great steamer coming over the horizon. It was coming our way. I dived at once, hoping to get a shot at it.” Okay, you know what’s coming next, but you will have to buy your own copy of this nonfiction thriller to find out exactly what happened, although it’s in the history books.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: So what kind of man was Herr Schwieger? A woman in Germany, who said she was Schwieger’s fiancee, stated that he was devastated about the sinking of the liner. He was never to torpedo another ship...he was a shattered man over what he saw in the periscope. Right! As it turns out, he continued to sink ships of all kinds in record numbers. He was even awarded Germany’s highest award, the Blue Max. He was finally killed near the end of the war when his sub was chased into a British minefield.

And what about Lucy’s Captain Turner? He was ravaged by what happened but felt that he didn’t do anything wrong. In an attempt to deflect the blame, the British Admiralty accused the captain of wrongdoing, even though the captain stayed on the bridge and went down with the ship. Somehow, he popped up and was rescued by a lifeboat. The Admiralty took Turner to court, but a judge found him innocent of any misdoings. He continued to work for the Cunard Line as a captain (although mostly on minor ships). Captain Turner died at the age of 76 from colon cancer.

Madly in love with his new wife, President Wilson played golf almost every day after Lucy’s sinking (even in the winter snow, playing with his wife using red golf balls). He spent two years writing letters back and forth with Germany and Great Britain. With the pressure of the German subs going on the rampage, sinking every ship they could find, he finally asked Congress to declare a state of war against Germany. What took you so long Mr. President?

Cunard Lines gave the 764 (out of 1,959) souls that survived the sinking of the Lusitania...a lifetime 25% discount on future sailings. Wow, thanks a lot.

GEORGE

This is a guest review from returning reviewer, Pat Koelmel:

Ever wonder what it would be like to be born transgender? A female in a male’s body? Or vice versa? Probably not. My guess is that it’s not the kind of stuff a typical eight-to-twelve-year-old (the target audience for George, a 2015 middle grade novel about a transgender boy, by Alex Gino) thinks about. Or perhaps it is, given the recent publicity surrounding Olympic gold medalist Bruce (now Cait) Jenner. In fact, one might even think the book’s release had been intentionally timed with Jenner’s debut as a woman, but it would have taken a prediction from the likes of Nostradamus to have pulled off something like that. The book was conceived twelve years prior with no such thing in mind other than: “There should be a book about a trans kid.” 

Written in the third person, the author chose to use the feminine pronouns (she, her, herself) when referring to ten-year-old George. An excellent decision, by the way, as it never lets you forget who George is: a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

Unable to reveal her big secret to her divorced mom or best friend Kelly (the two most likely people in her life to understand), George finds solace in such simple things like applying ChapStick (she pretends it’s lipstick) and flipping through her hidden stash of magazine friends, a term she uses to describe the few girls’ magazines she’s managed to discreetly collect over time. When no one is watching, she gazes into the mirror, combs her hair forward into bangs, and calls herself Melissa. Phew, imagine trying to hide who you really are day in and day out … and from everyone you know.

At school, to avoid using the boy’s bathroom (it stinks of pee and bleach), George restricts her drinking throughout the day. And then there are the two bullies who thrive on tormenting George. Amazingly enough, it is their mean remarks (“He’s such a freaking girl …”) that come closest to getting who George really is.

A rare ray of good news enters George’s life when her fourth-grade class puts on the stage adaptation of the novel Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. She fantasizes herself in the girl’s role, the kind and wise spider Charlotte. George, however, is expected to audition for Wilbur the pig, like all the other boys. With Kelly’s support, George tries out for Charlotte anyway, but it goes over poorly with her teacher. She thinks George is joking around. As a result, George is inconsolable. “She [George] had genuinely started to believe that if people could see her onstage as Charlotte, maybe they would see that she was a girl offstage too.”

Even worse, Kelly gets the part. “It was bad enough that she [George] wouldn’t be Charlotte. Now she would have to listen to Kelly talk about it, and possibly nothing else, for the next three weeks.”

So what happens next? Is there a chance for a happy ending? Honestly, I wondered myself. Transgender stories, as a rule, do not end well. But rest assured that the author has treated this sensitive subject in an age appropriate way.

Last words: Read George. Just as the disfigured Auggie in R. J. Palacio’s bestselling middle grade novel Wonder (see Pat's review of 8/25/2014) tugged at the heart, so will Alex Gino’s trans kid George.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Once again, the creative Pat Koelmel reviews a book dealing with social awareness. What's your thought on this matter? I personally feel that...it is what it is. In another words, a person can't change what is innate, therefore he/she must be accepted into society as is.

For some reason this review reminded me of the pro tennis player, Renee Richards and the brouhaha that followed. Renee, who was Richard Raskind, underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1975. She was denied entry into the U.S. Open in 1976 because she was not born a women. The decision was later overturned in 1977. In the ensuing years, Renee did play competitively in the women's division, but I don't remember her ever winning a tournament. 

In 1984, in order to tell her story, she wrote Second Serve.    

joe4

The author sent me an autographed copy of her book to review:

Salem, why do I feel like I’m playing a game of geocaching when I read one of your books? What would a Salem/China Mieville novel do to the literary world? The flapdoodle factor in your novels is tenfold a normal novel, but somehow I semi-understood whatever. The hoi polloi will not understand a word you wrote, but my gut feeling says that you don’t care, am I right? The dross don’t count. The salient factor in your novels is always blurred, only patently obvious to you. To juxtapose your novel with Mieville’s Kraken would put someone’s cognitive ability on ice. Am I speaking your language? Okay, you know that I’m just having some fun with you. I still don’t sorta understand your novels, although this one was a tad easier to comprehend. I’m still trying to figure out quantum. Is it a discrete quantity of energy proportional in magnitude to the frequency of the radiation it represents, or a wad of money? It seems to change depending on what novel of yours I’m reading. Okey-dokey, my drivel is done (my compos mentis has been damaged), so let’s get on with the detritus! Wow, that was fun...besides Salem, did anybody understand what I just said? So what’s the confusing story about?

joe4 works for Dr. Naranja (remember him?) in N.Y.C. as an “engineer who analyzed the effect of acoustical vibrations on sidewinder solar satellites.” Got it? But joe4 says that he is a pop musician. By the way, you will have to find out yourself how he got his name. Anyway, joe4 just got a quantum account of one million from DJU, a music company who wants him to make hit songs for them. joe4 goes to his regular job in order to resign from Naranja’s all powerful company. He could be executed for trying to quit. But they put him through the ringer, take his journal from him (to be examined rigorously by a chief censor) as he awaits their decision. joe4 wondered if Naranja or DJU knew “that he dreamed his music, that he heard it when falling asleep, then he simply harvested it.” It was alien. “joe4, Dr. Naranja decided, was no competitor’s spy. He was, somehow, a human tuning fork, and Dr. Naranja knew he needed to know why.” The good Dr. Naranja decides to let him go, but puts Chief Intelligence Officer A0333 on joe4's tail for ten years (apparently not uncommon). joe4 and his dog, Aiode, arrive at a desert in four Corners (in Arizona?) in order to work on his alien hits for DJU. Does his dog speak to him? And by the way, what are biozippers and squid cartilage envelopes?

joe4 lives in a Silverstream with his dog, pumping out musical hits from his alien dreams. Dr. Naranja listens to the music from N.Y.C. and he says, “perhaps our reality is being- very, very cleverly- abducted.” joe4’s music is delivered to DJU in the form of chewing gum...and listened to through your molars? Had enough yet? No, you want more, don’t you? Well, buy your own copy of this wacko book to find out how it ends. I’m still trying to figure out if Salem is insane or brilliant. Right now, it’s a coin flip. But in all sincerity, I felt the same way with China Mieville until I read his third book. I’ve only read two Salem novels, so school is still out! I had a lot of fun writing this review...I hope you enjoyed it.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: By far the weirdest novel that I ever read was given to me by my son and guest reviewer, Deron O. It is Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves (see my review of 2/01/2013). The following is my first paragraph of the review:

This novel is not a sequel to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass . In fact, it’s not like anything I’ve ever read before. Welcome to the world of ergodic literature. This was my first foray into this genre, and I liked it. This genre requires the reader to make a real effort to read and interpret the text. There are different ergodic levels, such as Charlton Mellick III’s bizarro Cuddly Holocaust or Ayn Rand’s play Night of January 16th, a murder trial where the jury is picked out of the audience, and their verdict decides the outcome of the play. I’m not sure where Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel fits in the world of ergodicity, but I’ll give the next reader an idea of what’s in store for you: hundreds of footnotes (some real, most not), one to four texts on the same page; some pages blank, some with one or two words; some pages upside down, some obliquely angled; and, different narrators on the same page. And why is the word ‘house’ always in blue and ‘minotaur’ in red? I have to say that some of the footnotes are pure genius. The reader does eventually understand what’s going on because the diverse narrators and variant footnotes are in distinctive fonts! Absolutely brilliant!

WIND CATCHER

The authors sent me an autographed copy of their novel to review:

When I first started reading this father/daughter written novel, I was big time gung-ho. I love books involving Native American Indians. However the novel became somewhat mundane for me around page 180. Suddenly I wasn’t eager to know what “gift” Juliet had or what secret her grandfather Sicheii concealed from her. I think the problem is that the story took too long to develop. I’m not saying that this was an inferior novel, but this flaw stopped this tale from receiving my best accolades. The amount of main characters was in the acceptable range, but I felt some degree of apathy for most of them. This is not a good harbinger of things to come. Look, I know that it’s hard to write a popular novel, but one has to look at whether the story is dragging or accelerating before publication. The author obviously has outstanding credentials (just read the bio information on the back cover), but one still has to wonder why this novel had to be a duet. Is dad (Jeff Altabef) trying to get his daughter some literary credits, or did she (Erynn Altabef) contribute meaningful? Okay, enough! What is this story about?  

Sixteen year old Juliet (half Indian) hears voices in her head but can’t grasp their meaning or the actual articulation. She has a small “star” scar on her right foot. Her grandfather, Sicheii, says that he gave her the mark when she was born so she could be blessed by “The Great Wind Spirit”. Really? Grandfather is a art gallery owner and a medicine man. Juliet’s mom pulled her from public school and put her into Bartens, a private school. Juliet is having problems adjusting to her privileged co-students. They seem to object to a half-bred (excuse my dashes, it’s not my normal style) in their school. Anyway she stays in touch with her former classmates, Troy, Ella, and Marlon along with her new friend Katie (at Bartens). Juliet’s mom (a tax lawyer) goes on a business trip and tells Juliet that Sicheii will be coming over to watch over her. Juliet decides to skip school and go to Slippery River Park with her friend Troy, a full blood Indian. On their way back from the park, Troy and Juliet see the police racing down the highway. They follow on Troy’s motorcycle to the Reservation where they see that another medicine man named Roundtree has been brutally murdered. Roundtree has a tattoo of twisted arrows on his chest. Juliet knows that her grandfather has the same tattoo.

Another murder occurs. Juliet learns of a newspaper article written 26 years ago with a photograph “of a group of men around a campfire” (including her grandfather). The writer, John Dent, hints of a possible “Secret Native American Society.” Juliet and her friends go to see Mr. Dent and find out that he died. They go to the graveyard and notice that he died one day after the article was written. And guess what’s carved on his tombstone? You guessed it...the two twisted arrows. What’s going on? Juliet seeks out another of the Indian men in the newspaper picture. He is Joe Hunter, and he is leaving town quickly. Before he leaves, Hunter tells Juliet, ”You’ve been chosen.” What mysteries lie ahead? What is she chosen for? This inaugurates the seeming exciting story into a modus operandi, which it does for awhile. Then it stalls. Why, I don’t know. Maybe it was because there wasn’t enough character development that made me feel less interested in what happened next. The novel just became sluggish. Then the story picked up the necessary steam and ran to the finish line. So basically this YA novel had me on a roller coaster ride...it started well, stalled in the middle and then came to a roaring conclusion. It was a little too choppy for me, but I do recommend this novel to all the YA readers out there.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: I think my main problem with the above mentioned novel is that I really don’t like most YA or dystopian novels. I think the Young Adult genre is somewhat foggy. Traditionally, I think the reader age is between 16 years old to 25 years old, however I’ve seen lower ranges and higher ranges from different sources. Of course the novel shouldn’t have profanity, sex or violence. But most YA books have violence, so I’m not sure if violence is an ingredient anymore. If you read some of the “Best YA Novels” lists, there are four books on all the lists that I wouldn’t consider YA.

The first novel is Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960). An American classic for sure, but Harper Lee considered her book...A simple love story.
The second novel is Mark Twain’s, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Some pundits consider the adventures of a boy in the Mississippi Valley... The great American novel. See my review of 12/17/2012.
The third book is J.D. Salinger’s, The Catcher in the Rye (1951). The classic story of sixteen year old Holden Caulfield’s venturesome few days traveling after being expelled from Prep School. See my review of 12/23/2012.
The fourth novel is J.R.R. Tolkien’s, The Hobbit (1937). The wonderful adventures of Bilbo Baggins in legendary Middle-Earth. See my review of 6/20/2013.

All the above novels are considered classic works, but don’t seem YA to me.  

AN OUROBOROS

The author sent me a copy of his novel to review:

This is not a serpent eating his tail at all. Well, what is it? It’s Paul Edward eating himself out of the literary world. It’s one of the most nonsensical novels that I've ever read. Period. Is the author trying to ape the rebellious Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (see my review of 12/23/2012)? If he is, he should go back to the drawing board. His character, Paul Edward (is he also the author?), is as shallow as a two-foot grave. What is he so angry about? Almost everything that comes out of Paul's mouth (of the novel) is pure prattle. Supposedly, he has this gorgeous college freshman named Grace to fixate on while he gives “the finger” to the world for no apparent reason. To sum up his opinion of Grace, he tells the reader (to semi paraphrase), “Grace is a incongruous Catholic girl from hackneyed.” By the way, get used to the words, Catholic and hackneyed, because he uses them on every page. He has an alternate female companion named Rose, who is a waitress that likes to smoke marijuana and drink whatever alcohol is available. What makes Paul, a pizza parlor worker, think that the establishment is wrong and he is right? And how many times does the reader have to read about his sexual escapades with Grace? It’s almost like it’s the focus of the novel.

It seems that Paul doesn’t know what normal is; on page 67, he says “I’m slugging down these roads like an escargot. I can do as I please. Why not travel these roads forever? Money? What does it matter if I have no intention of building a picket fence around green grass and a house?” Then on page 71, he says, “It sickens me how those matters have affected me. It has been the older generation forging the hate and disgust within me. They blather commands, casting away comments from the youth instead of shutting Their ( the ‘T’ in ‘Their’ is always capitalized when referring to the establishment) arrogant, egotistical, vainglorious traps to listen, as if Their old words are not only most genius but also pretty to look at drooling from Their insipid tongues.” This is okay to say, but the author offers no alternative other than mutinous rhetoric. And of course the reader continues to read about Grace’s beautiful genitalia (sometimes shaven). I don’t have a good handle on what Paul (I assumed that the character Paul and the writer Paul were the same person as I got deeper into the book) really feels is wrong with the older generation. At the book’s end, Paul says, “Today I have written what I needed to write. I’ve written history. Anything more would be untrue.” Well, Mr. Edward, I for one didn’t get it. But wait! I forgot that I am part of the older generation.  

I guess you can tell that I didn’t like the novel. Correctomundo! But, there were some parts of the novel that displayed future prowess. There were even some parts that made me laugh. If the author cleaned up his act, his prose would be considered normal to good. I don’t know what is bugging the author (even after finishing the novel), but I’m not a big fan of J.D. Salinger’s book either. The biggest thing missing in Mr. Edward’s novel is a plot. His book is a long obscure dissertation (in the form of a diary) seemingly without a reasonable point to be made. My suggestion for the author is to wipe the slate clean and try again. There is some talent there but it is very raw.

RATING: 2 out of 5 stars

Comment: So what don’t I understand about the younger generation? Quite a few things come to mind. As you know, I didn’t “get” the aforementioned novel by Mr. Edward. So what are other things that bemuse a older generation man, such as I, about the younger generation? Well:

Why do you text? The phone is still an effective communication device. And when you are driving a car, you can have bluetooth and talk “hands free” which perhaps will save you from a accident versus texting in your car.

Why do you binge-watch a T.V.series? I have heard many tales of the younger ones binge-watching a particular series for the entire weekend.

Who thought up “casual Friday”? What’s wrong with looking like a businessman on Friday?

And why do some of the youngsters think that America owes them a living? Look at the other countries of the world, especially in the Mid-East. You can lose your head quickly (literally). You should have been around when you had to register for the draft.

But I’m not complaining, I think the younger folks are terrific. Just being around them makes a old man feel younger. I’m just having some fun, but I still don’t understand the motive behind Mr. Edward's novel.