Hello all,
In 1924 Percival C. Wren wrote Beau Geste the first book in his trilogy of novels about three brothers who joined the French Foreign legion. Good Gestes is a collection of short stories about these three brothers and the other legionnaires they've encountered during their time in service with the French Foreign Legion (FFL.) I'm enjoying this book much more than I expected and it really got me interested in the FFL. So today I'm going to share a little information with you about the FFL that I researched.
For those who've never heard of it, the FFL is a branch of the French military service that was established in 1831. Before the legion was created in 1831, France spent the previous year in a revolution which forced king Charles X to abdicate and replaced him with Louis-Philippe. According to Tony Geraghty, who wrote March or Die: A New History of the French Foreign Legion, the legion was started as a way to deal soldiers sympathetic to Charles X, unemployed soldiers from the Napoleonic wars, and to take care of mobs of displaced dissidents in Paris. The FFL saw service in France, Algeria, Morocco, Spain, Italy, Indo-China, China, Taiwan, Madagascar, Dahomey, Crimea, Serbia, Gallipoli, Syria, Russia, Norway, Lebanon, Eritrea, Germany, West Africa, and many other countries. The FFL was mainly an agent of colonialism. By the end of the Napoleonic wars France had lost a lot of territory such as Canada and Louisiana. To that end the FFL spent a lot of time in places like North Africa, fighting for French control.
Although the French Foreign Legion is a military group that spent a lot of time out of the country, the legion was not primarily made up of french men. Actually if you were French and joined the legion, you were considered relatively disreputable and unsuitable for marriage. In fact the army, and the legion itself, were relatively out of favor for large periods of time, the 1870s - Franco-Prussian War, 1917 - WWI troops mutiny and threaten Paris, 1920s-1934, 1950s and 1960s - the Post Colonial Wars. (Actually in 1961 the legion actually attempted a coup against DeGaulle which was not popular and almost led to their entire disbandment.) As well as being unfavorable, the FFL was in a large part made up of foreign troops.
Many men, like the ones in Good Gestes, used the legion to escape pasts they didn't want to remember. "If the regiment's identification with the overseas empire was on long historical shadow cast by its origins, then another was the sanctuary it provided, of a sort, for able-bodied outcasts." People from other nations joined for a number of reasons including, economic hardship or stateless men, created by wars, seeking new places to belong. However, even with all of the foreigners in the legion, it was very clearly led by the French who made up the commanding class.
One thing I wondered while reading Good Gestes, is if the men in the FFL really took on completely new names an persona as they did in the book. Every single man in the stories of Good Gestes has a name in the foreign legion that is not their own. And as it happens in the first story, sometimes they die with the name never revealed and are buried under their nom-de-guerre. According to Geraghty, this is absolutely something that happened within the FFL. In many ways the nom-de-guerre helped tie together groups of men who could only speak halting french and in many cases were illiterate in their own language. It would be interested to look at the psychological impact of choosing a new identity. (Geraghty states that it is a psychological imperative for them.) But for the most part the practice appears to be laid more in the romantic tradition. Even with Wren speaks about the practice in Good Gestes he discusses it with a romantic overtone, however it does seem to help the men pull together in their multicultural environment.
I could go on further about the legion but I think to really get a the heart of the subject I'd have to add another book to the current literature. Especially considering how tied up the history of the legion is with the rest of European history. So I will end here with a little about the period of time that the Geste brothers are in the legion. The Geste books are written in the 1920s, during a period of unpopularity for the legion. At the time that the books are written, the legion was currently taking part in the Rif War against Berber tribesmen in Morocco. It has been suggested by some that the popularity of the legion rose because of the popularity of the Geste books. Since they were adapted into several movies, this is probably the case. But enough about the legion, I'll tell you all about the actual book in my next post.
Till next time fellow readers.
*Tony Geraghty, March or Die: A New History of the French Foreign Legion, (New York: Facts on File, 1987.)
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Valley of the Dolls
Hey everyone,
Sorry for the late posting. I had a ton of life stuff happen, like I'm now married, I'm pregnant, and I'll finally be graduating this year! So posts should remain as varied as they already were. Here's one I actually wrote half of a few months ago and am finally posting now.
Okay, so the Valley of the Dolls. Well to be honest before it showed up on my list of books my great grandfather owned, I had never heard of it. Which, if you ask me shows some lack of education on my part because the book was such an important one, it was bestseller in 1966 and has sold over 30 million copies. Valley of the Dolls is a well written novel about the inner lives of actresses and the effects of rampant pill usage among them.
In general the subject of the book is a bit depressing but Jacqueline Susann does such a great job at the writing and at getting inside the heads of her characters that you find yourself eating the book in large chunks. Or I did. I think I consumed this book in a four day period, which is a little fast even for me. But it was so good! I literally could not put this book down. The book follows three friends through their lives as they make their careers in film and modeling. Anne, is an uptight New England girl who escapes to New York to find herself. Neely is an aspiring actress who shows real talent and as soon as its recognized turns into a kind of horrible person. Jennifer is an aspiring actress who has the looks but not the talent and struggles to constantly battle against her failing career.
I fell in love with these characters in a way that is rare for a book. I accepted them as friends and took them into my heart. So when Neely turned into such a horrible person and went against Anne, I won't spoil it if you haven't read it, I felt really conflicted over her betrayal. On the one hand I knew what Neely had been like at the beginning and the things that had changed her. I couldn't fully hate her the way I could a character I didn't really feel a relationship with. And Jennifer pretty much broke my heart, I cried for quite a while over her.
I seriously loved this book but when I was done, I could not imagine my Great Grandfather reading this. It just really didn't seem like his kind of book. I complained to my mother, asking why did he own this book when he probably never read it. I admit I had a bit of a dumb moment. Obviously just as we inherited his books, he inherited some from his family. This book actually came out in 1966, before my Great Great Grandmother died, so there was a good chance that she was the one who read the book. Or of course, and this is where I was being dumb, my Great Grandmother could have read it. Perhaps they even shared the book with each other and both read it. Which is a super cool thought. And I wondered about what either of their reactions to this book could have been. Did Carmen, my great great grandmother, perhaps enjoy this book? Did she recommend it to Dot? Or was Dot the one who enjoyed it and recommending it to Carmen? Did either of them recommend it to my Grandmother? Who knows, I could be wrong and Great Grandpa really did read it. But I seriously doubt that's the case.
'Til next time fellow readers, and if you haven't I strongly suggest you pick up Valley of the Dolls. It was fantastic!
Sorry for the late posting. I had a ton of life stuff happen, like I'm now married, I'm pregnant, and I'll finally be graduating this year! So posts should remain as varied as they already were. Here's one I actually wrote half of a few months ago and am finally posting now.
Okay, so the Valley of the Dolls. Well to be honest before it showed up on my list of books my great grandfather owned, I had never heard of it. Which, if you ask me shows some lack of education on my part because the book was such an important one, it was bestseller in 1966 and has sold over 30 million copies. Valley of the Dolls is a well written novel about the inner lives of actresses and the effects of rampant pill usage among them.
In general the subject of the book is a bit depressing but Jacqueline Susann does such a great job at the writing and at getting inside the heads of her characters that you find yourself eating the book in large chunks. Or I did. I think I consumed this book in a four day period, which is a little fast even for me. But it was so good! I literally could not put this book down. The book follows three friends through their lives as they make their careers in film and modeling. Anne, is an uptight New England girl who escapes to New York to find herself. Neely is an aspiring actress who shows real talent and as soon as its recognized turns into a kind of horrible person. Jennifer is an aspiring actress who has the looks but not the talent and struggles to constantly battle against her failing career.
I fell in love with these characters in a way that is rare for a book. I accepted them as friends and took them into my heart. So when Neely turned into such a horrible person and went against Anne, I won't spoil it if you haven't read it, I felt really conflicted over her betrayal. On the one hand I knew what Neely had been like at the beginning and the things that had changed her. I couldn't fully hate her the way I could a character I didn't really feel a relationship with. And Jennifer pretty much broke my heart, I cried for quite a while over her.
I seriously loved this book but when I was done, I could not imagine my Great Grandfather reading this. It just really didn't seem like his kind of book. I complained to my mother, asking why did he own this book when he probably never read it. I admit I had a bit of a dumb moment. Obviously just as we inherited his books, he inherited some from his family. This book actually came out in 1966, before my Great Great Grandmother died, so there was a good chance that she was the one who read the book. Or of course, and this is where I was being dumb, my Great Grandmother could have read it. Perhaps they even shared the book with each other and both read it. Which is a super cool thought. And I wondered about what either of their reactions to this book could have been. Did Carmen, my great great grandmother, perhaps enjoy this book? Did she recommend it to Dot? Or was Dot the one who enjoyed it and recommending it to Carmen? Did either of them recommend it to my Grandmother? Who knows, I could be wrong and Great Grandpa really did read it. But I seriously doubt that's the case.
'Til next time fellow readers, and if you haven't I strongly suggest you pick up Valley of the Dolls. It was fantastic!
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Not Completely Convinced in Survival After Death
Definitely not convinced.
One Hundred Cases for Survival after Death was a sometimes interesting, mostly dry book. Admittedly going into it, I thought it would be more entertaining but Baird proved to be very committed to presenting the facts so that the reader would make up their own minds. Which, as a book making the case for survival after death, is really the way the book should be written.
Despite its dryness I did finish it and I did learn several things. The SPR was serious about their paranormal research. They did extensive work with mediums in particular. In fact, three quarters of the book was taken up with mediums. Speaking of mediums and researchers, I will note that there is a bit of controversy surrounding one member of the SPR that Baird strongly believed in. Harry Price was a member of the SPR in the 1920s who debunked several mediums. He tested one medium, Rudi Schneider, who claimed he could do levitation and found he was a fraud. However, fellow members in the SPR tested Rudi behind Price's back and claimed that Rudi was authentic. After his death the SPR claimed that Price's work with the Borley Rectory, actually used in Baird's book as proof of a haunting with suggestions to read Price's report of the paranormal events there, was faked and that Price was a fraud himself. Since only a few people backed up Price after his death I suspect Baird was a friend or a friend of a friend.
Something else I learned was that there was a lot of nonsense tests that the SPR put mediums through. For example, there used to be, I don't know if anyone still does it, something called Cross Correspondence where two mediums supposedly channel a spirit and when their automatic writing is compared it makes sense. Except that it really doesn't and in the few cases Baird used to prove the process the meaning between the two messages often had to be inferred. It rarely ever made actual sense when placed side by side. Most of the cross correspondence and automatic writing was a little too far for me to believe.
What's funny is that I actually do believe in survival after death, although perhaps not in the form that Baird thought it had. And some of his cases were very convincing, a couple made me shiver because of how convincing they were. For example, there was this one book test where a woman was told to look for a book in her house. She was told two passages because the medium's guide was a little confused as to the number of the page but both were very similar when she went home and found them.
I wouldn't suggest this book to anyone who does not have a strong interest in the paranormal. Many, many times I fell asleep reading because of how dryly the cases were presented. That said it was a good read. I don't know if my Great Grandfather read this book or if perhaps one of his parents had been interested in the subject. It's awesome that someone in my family line had an interest in this subject too. I only hope this book didn't bore them to sleep.
My next book will be Valley of the Dolls so until next time fellow readers.
One Hundred Cases for Survival after Death was a sometimes interesting, mostly dry book. Admittedly going into it, I thought it would be more entertaining but Baird proved to be very committed to presenting the facts so that the reader would make up their own minds. Which, as a book making the case for survival after death, is really the way the book should be written.
Despite its dryness I did finish it and I did learn several things. The SPR was serious about their paranormal research. They did extensive work with mediums in particular. In fact, three quarters of the book was taken up with mediums. Speaking of mediums and researchers, I will note that there is a bit of controversy surrounding one member of the SPR that Baird strongly believed in. Harry Price was a member of the SPR in the 1920s who debunked several mediums. He tested one medium, Rudi Schneider, who claimed he could do levitation and found he was a fraud. However, fellow members in the SPR tested Rudi behind Price's back and claimed that Rudi was authentic. After his death the SPR claimed that Price's work with the Borley Rectory, actually used in Baird's book as proof of a haunting with suggestions to read Price's report of the paranormal events there, was faked and that Price was a fraud himself. Since only a few people backed up Price after his death I suspect Baird was a friend or a friend of a friend.
Something else I learned was that there was a lot of nonsense tests that the SPR put mediums through. For example, there used to be, I don't know if anyone still does it, something called Cross Correspondence where two mediums supposedly channel a spirit and when their automatic writing is compared it makes sense. Except that it really doesn't and in the few cases Baird used to prove the process the meaning between the two messages often had to be inferred. It rarely ever made actual sense when placed side by side. Most of the cross correspondence and automatic writing was a little too far for me to believe.
What's funny is that I actually do believe in survival after death, although perhaps not in the form that Baird thought it had. And some of his cases were very convincing, a couple made me shiver because of how convincing they were. For example, there was this one book test where a woman was told to look for a book in her house. She was told two passages because the medium's guide was a little confused as to the number of the page but both were very similar when she went home and found them.
I wouldn't suggest this book to anyone who does not have a strong interest in the paranormal. Many, many times I fell asleep reading because of how dryly the cases were presented. That said it was a good read. I don't know if my Great Grandfather read this book or if perhaps one of his parents had been interested in the subject. It's awesome that someone in my family line had an interest in this subject too. I only hope this book didn't bore them to sleep.
My next book will be Valley of the Dolls so until next time fellow readers.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Survival After Death?
When I saw this book with my Great Grandfather's things I should have realized I had more in common with my Great Grandparents than I thought. I have always been interested in ghost stories and whether or not life continues after death. I mean when I was 11 or 12 I was spending time with my friend watching haunted histories of buildings around the United States. I was the one who forced my family to watch that show where a family got locked into a haunted castle to see if it was actually haunted. So I was looking forward to reading this book. And at about 25 cases into it, it has not been much of a disappointment.
One Hundred Cases for Survival After Death is a little known book edited by Alex T. Baird which contains one hundred accounts of experiences with haunted houses, automatic writing, and materialization and the like. Most of the cases are quick synopses and excerpts from cases recorded by the SPR. For those of you who don't know, the SPR is the Society for Psychical Research. The original SPR started in 1882 and was the first, "organization established to examine allegedly paranormal phenomena using scientific principles."1 Basically these people attempted to explain paranormal phenomena using science, i.e. a ghostly sound is easily explained as a door swinging because it is loose. Basically these guys are the precursors to TV shows like Ghost Hunters. But anyway, back to the SPR, which published a scholarly journal where they discussed the research they conducted methodologically. To the paranormal field, the SPR was huge and for the most part helped debunk many of the fake mediums and other paranormal phenomenon that popped up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Although every case selected by Baird does not come from the SPR, or the ASPR (American Society for Psychical Research), a large number of them are from their journals and research. In fact it was the complaint I found in the only review on this book I could locate (with a quick search, a more exhaustive one could potentially net more.) You can read the review here and get a pretty good idea as to what the book is about from the review.
I am 58 pages into the book and its really interesting. Baird states the cases very dryly and succinctly, and while some seem a bit ridiculous others are intriguing. Especially the one out of North Carolina that was used in court. I really want to see those court documents. I particularly like the style of this book because Baird is clearly not out to scare people. He has chosen several phenomena that exist and then used these cases to back up his theory that these phenomena are real. However, as he says in his forward, the reader should use their own judgement in deciding whether there is a case for life after death, "I think that all the writing in the world will not convince anyone so thoroughly as evidence found for oneself." (Baird, 8.)
I look forward to discussing the book and cases more in depth with you next time fellow readers.
1. For more information on the SPR you can check out their website here. Or the ASPR here.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
She is...
Well, definitely She is a product of its time. I probably would have thrown the book at the wall if there had been one more mention of the rarity of the gloomy African. Or about how fantastic Ayesha was and how much in love Holly was with her.
To be honest, I will probably not read another Henry Rider Haggard Novel. Not because of the misogyny or the racism, both of which definitely existed, but because this book read very similar to Queen Sheba's Ring and the novelty is lost. Basically Haggard's novels follow the same plot line, a group of people go adventure in Africa, they find some lost civilization or the remains of a dying one, they're amazed by the people and the technology, they fall in love with a female character, they escape after pissing all of the native people off. Now granted in She, the escape was after the death of Ayesha, the female character they fell in love with, who murdered Ustane, the other female character they were in love with. And personally I still feel like Job didn't have to die. I feel like as a writer, Haggard only threw in that premonition to make extra pages and then following through on the most obvious piece of foreshadowing, he killed him. And then to kill him from fright, come on! I might as well add that Haggard is also classist since Job was apparently so lowborn that his feeble brain could not comprehend anything more than fear.
Despite my issues with the book, Haggard is a rather enjoyable writer. He does a very good job painting a picture in only a few words, mostly avoiding purple prose. (There were one or two moments where Holly dove off into the purple prose field.) The action is also relatively well placed and I went through the book quickly, when I wasn't working on my Thesis.
Now part of my complaints come from the fact that She was originally produced as a serial. She is one of Haggard's most popular novels and, as late as 1965, the book has been published in over 44 different languages. She is also a foundational work of fantasy literature, which considering the powers that Ayesha wields is understandable. This may be why I love and hate the book so much because the whole concept of who Ayesha was and the whole civilization of Kor were so fascinating. Really I wanted more of that and instead I got Holly's misogyny.
I guess I leave She with mixed feelings. On the one hand I enjoy Haggard's descriptive writing. Reading his book is like finding a dwarven ruin I haven't explored in Skyrim. As an adventure novel the book works. Although the characters aren't particularly likeable, you can't help but care for them anyway. Except Ayesha, she is a monster and I am still mad at her for what she did to Ustane. But the very fact that I feel that anger at Ayesha proves how good a writer Haggard is. On the other hand the book is definitely a product of its time and all the prejudice that came out of that period of history. (Which as a nineteenth and early twentieth century historian I can say is a lot. A LOT.)
Given the subject matter I can see why my Great Grandfather had this book on his shelf. I imagine he read it as a boy or, if he read it as an adult, with perhaps some of the enjoyment he would have felt as a boy. That said, reading the same books my Great Grandparents read is starting to make clear to me where my own love of Sci-fi and Fantasy comes from. Nine times out of ten I will reach for a fantasy novel over say a mystery. I wonder if my own choice in books comes from a preference passed down through the generations of my family - either genetically or culturally.
For my next book I think I'm going to look at one that is Non-fiction, or kinda close. That's right! I'm going to read One Hundred Cases for Life After Death.
Till next time, fellow readers.
To be honest, I will probably not read another Henry Rider Haggard Novel. Not because of the misogyny or the racism, both of which definitely existed, but because this book read very similar to Queen Sheba's Ring and the novelty is lost. Basically Haggard's novels follow the same plot line, a group of people go adventure in Africa, they find some lost civilization or the remains of a dying one, they're amazed by the people and the technology, they fall in love with a female character, they escape after pissing all of the native people off. Now granted in She, the escape was after the death of Ayesha, the female character they fell in love with, who murdered Ustane, the other female character they were in love with. And personally I still feel like Job didn't have to die. I feel like as a writer, Haggard only threw in that premonition to make extra pages and then following through on the most obvious piece of foreshadowing, he killed him. And then to kill him from fright, come on! I might as well add that Haggard is also classist since Job was apparently so lowborn that his feeble brain could not comprehend anything more than fear.
Despite my issues with the book, Haggard is a rather enjoyable writer. He does a very good job painting a picture in only a few words, mostly avoiding purple prose. (There were one or two moments where Holly dove off into the purple prose field.) The action is also relatively well placed and I went through the book quickly, when I wasn't working on my Thesis.
Now part of my complaints come from the fact that She was originally produced as a serial. She is one of Haggard's most popular novels and, as late as 1965, the book has been published in over 44 different languages. She is also a foundational work of fantasy literature, which considering the powers that Ayesha wields is understandable. This may be why I love and hate the book so much because the whole concept of who Ayesha was and the whole civilization of Kor were so fascinating. Really I wanted more of that and instead I got Holly's misogyny.
I guess I leave She with mixed feelings. On the one hand I enjoy Haggard's descriptive writing. Reading his book is like finding a dwarven ruin I haven't explored in Skyrim. As an adventure novel the book works. Although the characters aren't particularly likeable, you can't help but care for them anyway. Except Ayesha, she is a monster and I am still mad at her for what she did to Ustane. But the very fact that I feel that anger at Ayesha proves how good a writer Haggard is. On the other hand the book is definitely a product of its time and all the prejudice that came out of that period of history. (Which as a nineteenth and early twentieth century historian I can say is a lot. A LOT.)
Given the subject matter I can see why my Great Grandfather had this book on his shelf. I imagine he read it as a boy or, if he read it as an adult, with perhaps some of the enjoyment he would have felt as a boy. That said, reading the same books my Great Grandparents read is starting to make clear to me where my own love of Sci-fi and Fantasy comes from. Nine times out of ten I will reach for a fantasy novel over say a mystery. I wonder if my own choice in books comes from a preference passed down through the generations of my family - either genetically or culturally.
For my next book I think I'm going to look at one that is Non-fiction, or kinda close. That's right! I'm going to read One Hundred Cases for Life After Death.
Till next time, fellow readers.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Henry Rider Haggard's She
Hello all!
I know, I know. Originally I said I would read Ramona by Helen H. Jackson and I did start it but the book was so dry that I decided to put it off till later. So now I am reading Henry Rider Haggard's novel, She. Which is, so far, a more interesting read, especially following Roots.
Let me spend this post giving you a little background on the novel. Originally published in 1887 She is fundamentally a gothic romance with a spice of adventure. The novel followed Haggard's intensely popular King Solomon's Mines. She was published as a serial and is written as if it actually happened. The fantastic story was supposedly written by the guardian of a handsome young man who could trace his ancestry to before the fall of the Pharaohs of Egypt. This style, according to the introduction of the book I'm reading, is similar to the style he employed in King Solomon's Mines. She is one of Haggard's best known, and best read novels and according to some literary experts is supposedly his best work.
Now I have read Henry Rider Haggard before. A few years ago I cracked open Queen Sheba's Ring which I really enjoyed. So going into She I already knew that Haggard is completely racist. I will chuck this up to the period in which he lived, but it is important to note. Since my last novel discussed racism a little, mainly involving the work and its place in modern times, I am kind of going to gloss over the racism in She. I do want to say that, and I've done a little research on this in college, I understand that as a British citizen, Haggard's racism is steeped in colonial concepts. So the racism present is different from what you will find in an American novel of the same time-period. For example, Haggard's characters respect, to a degree, the people of Amhaggar. However, they do turn out to be cannibals, and the party of adventurers are surprised to see any aspects of civilized behavior among them.
But enough about that. As I said earlier, I have read one other book of Haggard's and so I was looking forward to reading She. The last book I read by him took a while, because I dropped off in reading it for about half a year, but generally the book was enjoyable. Haggard is a magnificent author, and his word play is fantastic. I particularly like, in She, his ability to bring humor into what is altogether a rather dark tale. I hope to have She finished in the next few weeks and move on to the next book. Which will NOT be Ramona, yet.
Til next time fellow readers.
I know, I know. Originally I said I would read Ramona by Helen H. Jackson and I did start it but the book was so dry that I decided to put it off till later. So now I am reading Henry Rider Haggard's novel, She. Which is, so far, a more interesting read, especially following Roots.
Let me spend this post giving you a little background on the novel. Originally published in 1887 She is fundamentally a gothic romance with a spice of adventure. The novel followed Haggard's intensely popular King Solomon's Mines. She was published as a serial and is written as if it actually happened. The fantastic story was supposedly written by the guardian of a handsome young man who could trace his ancestry to before the fall of the Pharaohs of Egypt. This style, according to the introduction of the book I'm reading, is similar to the style he employed in King Solomon's Mines. She is one of Haggard's best known, and best read novels and according to some literary experts is supposedly his best work.
Now I have read Henry Rider Haggard before. A few years ago I cracked open Queen Sheba's Ring which I really enjoyed. So going into She I already knew that Haggard is completely racist. I will chuck this up to the period in which he lived, but it is important to note. Since my last novel discussed racism a little, mainly involving the work and its place in modern times, I am kind of going to gloss over the racism in She. I do want to say that, and I've done a little research on this in college, I understand that as a British citizen, Haggard's racism is steeped in colonial concepts. So the racism present is different from what you will find in an American novel of the same time-period. For example, Haggard's characters respect, to a degree, the people of Amhaggar. However, they do turn out to be cannibals, and the party of adventurers are surprised to see any aspects of civilized behavior among them.
But enough about that. As I said earlier, I have read one other book of Haggard's and so I was looking forward to reading She. The last book I read by him took a while, because I dropped off in reading it for about half a year, but generally the book was enjoyable. Haggard is a magnificent author, and his word play is fantastic. I particularly like, in She, his ability to bring humor into what is altogether a rather dark tale. I hope to have She finished in the next few weeks and move on to the next book. Which will NOT be Ramona, yet.
Til next time fellow readers.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
The end of the Roots, There May Be Spoilers
Hello everyone!
After an almost year long hiatus, I am here to discuss Roots with you for the fourth and final time. In case you were wondering, I am still writing my thesis. But in an attempt to avoid writing, said Thesis, I managed to consume Roots. Actually a little too fast to please me in the avoiding Thesis department. But this book was so good!
Let me just say that I learned so much from this book, not just about humanity but about so many things. Like did you know that President Polk, actually my favorite president, died just a few weeks after leaving office because he had Cholera? I always thought he just served one term for fun, I didn't know he never had a chance to serve a second! And this is something that I learned with the slaves through the grapevine of information presented in the book.
The last time I wrote a post I was still following Kunta Kinte's path as a slave. By the time I got to his daughter Kizzy and her progeny, I couldn't put the book down. I read over 500 pages in 3 days. Despite the slow beginning, which really can we blame the guy that Haley reportedly plagiarized, the book was excellently written. What Haley accomplishes is a glimpse into the past as it must have been experienced by these slaves. And while he may not be completely historically accurate, he manages to give readers insight into the mind frame of the men and women who lived through slavery.
You may remember from my last post, but then its been a little under a year so you may not, that there was a great deal of controversy involving this book. Many people believe it isn't worth reading because of the controversy over Alex Haley plagiarizing this book. In fact when I told people I wanted to read the book, only one or two people were supportive. Most people questioned my decision to read it, and derided me. Yet, it was a book that my Great Grandfather owned and that he must have read.
After reading it, I got it. I understood why people didn't want to read the book. Personally I think that those people must have read it wrong. Instead of reading Roots as a glimpse into the mindset of the slave experience, these people must have approached it with a sense of white guilt. It's no secret that slaves suffered. How could anyone who is bound, not free, not suffer to some degree. But the degrees of suffering were different or everyone, which is something that Haley pointed out in his book. Kizzy's grandson Tom has a much different experience than his great-grandfather Kunta does. And I realize as I'm writing this now that as a Portuguese-American whose parent's immigrated to this country, my Great Grandfather didn't need to feel a sense of white guilt. He didn't share in the history of that part of the nation because his family came over long after slavery in the 1920s.
So I wonder if instead he shared some of what I felt when I read the book. A sense of wonder that a family was orally able to preserve their lineage in a time when they could have been separated by anything. Certainly my own knowledge of my legacy is extensive, but its not enriched by the stories that Haley must have been told by his own grandmother which enabled him to travel all the way to Africa to find his family's origin.
So at the end of this, I would argue that everyone should really read this book. Roots is worth the read and I promise you, you will laugh and cry with the characters. And at the end you may come away with a shifted world view. Which is, ultimately I think, what Haley desires out of his readers. Not to come away with a sense of guilt but to come away enriched with an understanding of what his family experienced as slaves. And if you're not sure as to his goals, read the last chapter first where he explains how he started on the whole trail that led to the book. You may think twice and find it worth the read too.
Since it is time for something that is not 500 pages or more, the next book I'll be reading will be Ramona.
See you later fellow readers!
After an almost year long hiatus, I am here to discuss Roots with you for the fourth and final time. In case you were wondering, I am still writing my thesis. But in an attempt to avoid writing, said Thesis, I managed to consume Roots. Actually a little too fast to please me in the avoiding Thesis department. But this book was so good!
Let me just say that I learned so much from this book, not just about humanity but about so many things. Like did you know that President Polk, actually my favorite president, died just a few weeks after leaving office because he had Cholera? I always thought he just served one term for fun, I didn't know he never had a chance to serve a second! And this is something that I learned with the slaves through the grapevine of information presented in the book.
The last time I wrote a post I was still following Kunta Kinte's path as a slave. By the time I got to his daughter Kizzy and her progeny, I couldn't put the book down. I read over 500 pages in 3 days. Despite the slow beginning, which really can we blame the guy that Haley reportedly plagiarized, the book was excellently written. What Haley accomplishes is a glimpse into the past as it must have been experienced by these slaves. And while he may not be completely historically accurate, he manages to give readers insight into the mind frame of the men and women who lived through slavery.
You may remember from my last post, but then its been a little under a year so you may not, that there was a great deal of controversy involving this book. Many people believe it isn't worth reading because of the controversy over Alex Haley plagiarizing this book. In fact when I told people I wanted to read the book, only one or two people were supportive. Most people questioned my decision to read it, and derided me. Yet, it was a book that my Great Grandfather owned and that he must have read.
After reading it, I got it. I understood why people didn't want to read the book. Personally I think that those people must have read it wrong. Instead of reading Roots as a glimpse into the mindset of the slave experience, these people must have approached it with a sense of white guilt. It's no secret that slaves suffered. How could anyone who is bound, not free, not suffer to some degree. But the degrees of suffering were different or everyone, which is something that Haley pointed out in his book. Kizzy's grandson Tom has a much different experience than his great-grandfather Kunta does. And I realize as I'm writing this now that as a Portuguese-American whose parent's immigrated to this country, my Great Grandfather didn't need to feel a sense of white guilt. He didn't share in the history of that part of the nation because his family came over long after slavery in the 1920s.
So I wonder if instead he shared some of what I felt when I read the book. A sense of wonder that a family was orally able to preserve their lineage in a time when they could have been separated by anything. Certainly my own knowledge of my legacy is extensive, but its not enriched by the stories that Haley must have been told by his own grandmother which enabled him to travel all the way to Africa to find his family's origin.
So at the end of this, I would argue that everyone should really read this book. Roots is worth the read and I promise you, you will laugh and cry with the characters. And at the end you may come away with a shifted world view. Which is, ultimately I think, what Haley desires out of his readers. Not to come away with a sense of guilt but to come away enriched with an understanding of what his family experienced as slaves. And if you're not sure as to his goals, read the last chapter first where he explains how he started on the whole trail that led to the book. You may think twice and find it worth the read too.
Since it is time for something that is not 500 pages or more, the next book I'll be reading will be Ramona.
See you later fellow readers!
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Serious Hiatus!
Sorry everyone! It's been a while since I've posted but I've not given up the project. School started and life got a little crazy for me so I haven't been able to read much of Roots, although I am reading it!
(Well to be honest it's currently under my bed where it dropped about 2 weeks ago. But up to 2 weeks ago I was reading it. Under my bed is scary so it might be a while till I pull it out.)
Anyway! I am on a serious hiatus until probably next spring because I start working on my Master's Thesis for real, next month. I will try to read and finish Roots and update in that time. If I can't manage that, I may switch to a shorter book for a little while, just to get through the list. Happy reading to everyone!
Saturday, August 16, 2014
The Flux and Other Things
This book has really started to pick up.
In light of my last post I would first like to point out the historical importance of a work of fiction like this. In my line of work, museum exhibits, it is considered good if you can shock the visitor into thinking about a subject in a completely different way. Freeman Tilden's, the main authority on interpretation, 4th rule states that "The chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation." Basically, people don't understand what they're reading if you simply give them information, you have to startle them into connecting with history on a personal level. I mention this because I just got through the section where Kunta is traveling on a slave ship (and yes I read through the whole disgusting mess without pause.) In this entire section, Alex Haley (or maybe Harry Courlander the author of The African, which Haley did plagiarize) does a fantastic job shocking the reader into thinking differently about the voyage over from Africa to the United States. Personally, I knew that slave ships were horrible; but until reading this book, I never realized just how horrifying it could be for the person going through it.
Just a note about the plagiarism before I go on. I agree that Alex Haley must have plagiarized several parts of the book because he paid a good amount of money, out of court, to Harry Courlander. However, from this point on I plan to refer all credit to Haley. This is because I have not read The African and cannot say exactly what he plagiarized. (Though I do plan to find the book somewhere and take a look at it.) Also, no matter where I look online, no one can tell me an exact passage that Haley plagiarized.1 And those that do go into long, boring articles about the plagiarism love to point out that the book was not really written by Haley at all but was ghost written by whites which I'm sorry but I find completely unbelievable.2 Not that whites couldn't write this but these articles seem to be stressing the white point too much and are obviously a reaction founded in racism. Otherwise there would be no reason to insist that the book was written by whites instead of by a black man. But enough of that, let me move on.
Today, outside of learning about how awful slave ships were, I also learned a little more about dysentery than I liked. Well that would actually be wrong. As grossed out as I was, I was delighted by the grossness. Part of why my boyfriend calls me Terrifyingly Adorable. The truth is, I find the symptoms of diseases to be the most shocking thing you can present someone with. I could gross you out with some symptoms of Spanish Influenza but instead I have dysentery to play with. Or, as they called it in the book The Flux. I do find is suspicious that Kunta managed to pick out that one word when it didn't appear that he picked out any others but well... Anyway, armed with this new word, Flux, I immediately looked it up. Personally I think Dysentery sounds far worse, but Flux is what it was called in the 19th century. It was often caught by sailors and according to WHO is a bacterial infection which results in loose watery stools that contain blood. 3 On a 19th century ship, it is a disgusting, slippery thing. And naturally with a disease like this, most people die from dehydration than anything else.
But I suppose that's all I'll torture you with today. Until the next horrifying thing this book reveals!
In light of my last post I would first like to point out the historical importance of a work of fiction like this. In my line of work, museum exhibits, it is considered good if you can shock the visitor into thinking about a subject in a completely different way. Freeman Tilden's, the main authority on interpretation, 4th rule states that "The chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation." Basically, people don't understand what they're reading if you simply give them information, you have to startle them into connecting with history on a personal level. I mention this because I just got through the section where Kunta is traveling on a slave ship (and yes I read through the whole disgusting mess without pause.) In this entire section, Alex Haley (or maybe Harry Courlander the author of The African, which Haley did plagiarize) does a fantastic job shocking the reader into thinking differently about the voyage over from Africa to the United States. Personally, I knew that slave ships were horrible; but until reading this book, I never realized just how horrifying it could be for the person going through it.
Just a note about the plagiarism before I go on. I agree that Alex Haley must have plagiarized several parts of the book because he paid a good amount of money, out of court, to Harry Courlander. However, from this point on I plan to refer all credit to Haley. This is because I have not read The African and cannot say exactly what he plagiarized. (Though I do plan to find the book somewhere and take a look at it.) Also, no matter where I look online, no one can tell me an exact passage that Haley plagiarized.1 And those that do go into long, boring articles about the plagiarism love to point out that the book was not really written by Haley at all but was ghost written by whites which I'm sorry but I find completely unbelievable.2 Not that whites couldn't write this but these articles seem to be stressing the white point too much and are obviously a reaction founded in racism. Otherwise there would be no reason to insist that the book was written by whites instead of by a black man. But enough of that, let me move on.
Today, outside of learning about how awful slave ships were, I also learned a little more about dysentery than I liked. Well that would actually be wrong. As grossed out as I was, I was delighted by the grossness. Part of why my boyfriend calls me Terrifyingly Adorable. The truth is, I find the symptoms of diseases to be the most shocking thing you can present someone with. I could gross you out with some symptoms of Spanish Influenza but instead I have dysentery to play with. Or, as they called it in the book The Flux. I do find is suspicious that Kunta managed to pick out that one word when it didn't appear that he picked out any others but well... Anyway, armed with this new word, Flux, I immediately looked it up. Personally I think Dysentery sounds far worse, but Flux is what it was called in the 19th century. It was often caught by sailors and according to WHO is a bacterial infection which results in loose watery stools that contain blood. 3 On a 19th century ship, it is a disgusting, slippery thing. And naturally with a disease like this, most people die from dehydration than anything else.
But I suppose that's all I'll torture you with today. Until the next horrifying thing this book reveals!
1 http://nypost.com/2002/01/16/the-celebrated-roots-of-a-lie/↩
2 http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/6335-alex-haleys-fraudulent-roots↩
3 http://www.who.int/topics/dysentery/en/↩
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Slow Roots
I'm taking a bit longer on this book than I should.
It's been 3 weeks since I began my journey and I'm only 60 pages in. But what a journey it has been. Not in the book, but in the impact that the book has today. But let me explain. When I first told people I was going to read this book I got mixed responses. Some people were excited, some people didn't care, and several people told me that Alex Haley lied in his book.
The last response I thought was incredibly stupid, after all the book is a work of fiction - historical fiction but fiction nonetheless. Now I did do some research, and I am aware that the man plagiarized. But come on, its not like he's a qualified historian who plagiarized from several books, and there have been one or two well known ones who've done this. He admitted he plagiarized the bits about Africa so lets just move on with it.
But that's not really the problem I've been having with the book. For example, last week a coworker saw that I was toting Roots around with me when I went to switch shifts with him. (I say toting because not much reading is being done.) His response was to sneer and say, "Oh, you're reading Roots. Historical fiction." Which was a ridiculous response because this particular co-worker was carting a young adult fantasy romance novel - which I happen to know is in the Twilight style. Besides I've seen him toting around historical fiction himself. Which means, I thought later that evening, that he is not sneering at Roots because it is Historical Fiction. No, he is sneering at it because it is written by an African American writer.
I've never known this coworker to be obviously racist, but towards this book he clearly is. Which brings me to the topic of what the book is about. Firstly, the book is about an African family - the Kinte's and specifically the journey of Kunta Kinte's line to the Americas through the process of slavery. White guilt, which is ridiculous but does exist, leads whites to feel like they themselves are responsible for the actions of their ancestors towards other people. Surprisingly this is mainly seen in America dealing with slavery. I certainly don't see any evidence of German guilt concerning their actions in World War II. Or French and English guilt for owning slaves. I suspect this has little to do with the actual guilt of owning slaves than with the continued treatment of a group of people long after slavery ended. Excellent blog on a similar subject here. But I have sidetracked.
This book must have made quite the splash when it was published let alone the splash it still makes today. If I needed any proof that racism was still alive, the book would have proved it. I wasn't surprised to have one of my friends tell me that the book was worthless since the author lied. I've already observed her repeated racial prejudice. But to have a coworker that I respected act like that, I'm disappointed. Although, after his comment, it makes me more determined to read the book all the way through.
It's been 3 weeks since I began my journey and I'm only 60 pages in. But what a journey it has been. Not in the book, but in the impact that the book has today. But let me explain. When I first told people I was going to read this book I got mixed responses. Some people were excited, some people didn't care, and several people told me that Alex Haley lied in his book.
The last response I thought was incredibly stupid, after all the book is a work of fiction - historical fiction but fiction nonetheless. Now I did do some research, and I am aware that the man plagiarized. But come on, its not like he's a qualified historian who plagiarized from several books, and there have been one or two well known ones who've done this. He admitted he plagiarized the bits about Africa so lets just move on with it.
But that's not really the problem I've been having with the book. For example, last week a coworker saw that I was toting Roots around with me when I went to switch shifts with him. (I say toting because not much reading is being done.) His response was to sneer and say, "Oh, you're reading Roots. Historical fiction." Which was a ridiculous response because this particular co-worker was carting a young adult fantasy romance novel - which I happen to know is in the Twilight style. Besides I've seen him toting around historical fiction himself. Which means, I thought later that evening, that he is not sneering at Roots because it is Historical Fiction. No, he is sneering at it because it is written by an African American writer.
I've never known this coworker to be obviously racist, but towards this book he clearly is. Which brings me to the topic of what the book is about. Firstly, the book is about an African family - the Kinte's and specifically the journey of Kunta Kinte's line to the Americas through the process of slavery. White guilt, which is ridiculous but does exist, leads whites to feel like they themselves are responsible for the actions of their ancestors towards other people. Surprisingly this is mainly seen in America dealing with slavery. I certainly don't see any evidence of German guilt concerning their actions in World War II. Or French and English guilt for owning slaves. I suspect this has little to do with the actual guilt of owning slaves than with the continued treatment of a group of people long after slavery ended. Excellent blog on a similar subject here. But I have sidetracked.
This book must have made quite the splash when it was published let alone the splash it still makes today. If I needed any proof that racism was still alive, the book would have proved it. I wasn't surprised to have one of my friends tell me that the book was worthless since the author lied. I've already observed her repeated racial prejudice. But to have a coworker that I respected act like that, I'm disappointed. Although, after his comment, it makes me more determined to read the book all the way through.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Code of the West - Follow up
What an utter disappointment.
I was really geared to like this book. This is the book I was looking forward to the most after Mr. Blettsworthy. The opening caught your interest, the descriptions of the landscape made me nostalgic (grew up in El Paso, TX), but the characters were so flat they just couldn't follow through. To be honest, instead of reading about Georgiana and Cal, I would've like to hear more about Enoch and Mary - Georgiana's sister. But let me back up a few paces here.
Here's a synopsis of the story from Amazon.com, which I probably should have read but in the interest of this project I'd like to go into these books as unbiased as possible. Georgianna Stockwell, a free-spirited young woman from the East, moves to the wilds of the Tonto Basin in Arizona and she creates a violent culture clash. She revels in a whirlwind of flirtations and coquetry, outraging the proud Western folk and violating their Code of Honour, Her presence is provocative to all young men in the Basin, but to Cal Thurman in particular she is "like a firebrand in prairie grass." Through Cal she finds a love she does not expect - and a heritage of violence she cannot control.
Sounds exciting right? A Violent Culture Clash? What is that! I'll tell you though, its not half as interesting as it sounds. The violence is barely existent until the last 30 - 20 pages of the book. Like I said earlier, the story starts out great. Mary Stockwell plays a joke on the boys at the ranch she boards at by asking them to pick up her dour looking sister. Of course, Georgiana is absolutely gorgeous but the boys don't know that. The book is all fun until Georgiana arrives, and then it goes downhill from there. Now granted by the time he wrote Code of the West, Zane Grey was pumping out books at a pace of 1 to 2 books a year. Naturally when you're producing books at that rate, the quality is bound to flag. But once Georgiana arrives, every single person in the book loses any semblance of a character. Cal is a sullen cowboy in love, Georgiana is a flirtatious urban girl, and every other person in the book - except Tuck Merry - is a cowboy looking for trouble.
Perhaps even worse than the bad storytelling, is the insult the book makes towards feminists. One minute Georgiana is all full of fire and feminism, set on having her way. But the second that Cal acts like a caveman and literally kidnaps her to make her marry him, she has a change of heart and can suddenly understand why western women are the way they are. Suddenly she understands how to manage the home and she was made for that her whole life. Also, she's completely unable to be angry at Cal for kidnapping her and forcing her into marriage and she grows to realize she's always loved him.
In the midst of this pathetic dribble is the violence of Cal beating another young cowboy Bid Hatfield for saying slanderous things about his "now" wife. (Well more like trying to beat.) When he returns home bruised and broken, Georgiana resolves to make everything right that her scandalous flirting has ruined! On the one hand, her actions are satisfying because she takes Tuck Merry and has her say about Bid Hatfield right there in front of his boss. Way to stand up for herself! On the other hand, Tuck Merry beats the living daylights out of Bid, so so much for the strong girl rectifying everything on her own.
I will most likely never read another Zane Grey novel again. Luckily, there are no others on my list. I like to think that my Great Grandfather also didn't care for the books. But I figure that's rather modern wishful thinking. Although, from the small time I knew him, my Great Grandfather did seem like a forward thinking man. I leave that question to be settled for the next book, Roots by Alex Haley. As it has been on my own list for a while I can't wait to cross it off.
'Till the next book, patient readers.
I was really geared to like this book. This is the book I was looking forward to the most after Mr. Blettsworthy. The opening caught your interest, the descriptions of the landscape made me nostalgic (grew up in El Paso, TX), but the characters were so flat they just couldn't follow through. To be honest, instead of reading about Georgiana and Cal, I would've like to hear more about Enoch and Mary - Georgiana's sister. But let me back up a few paces here.
Here's a synopsis of the story from Amazon.com, which I probably should have read but in the interest of this project I'd like to go into these books as unbiased as possible. Georgianna Stockwell, a free-spirited young woman from the East, moves to the wilds of the Tonto Basin in Arizona and she creates a violent culture clash. She revels in a whirlwind of flirtations and coquetry, outraging the proud Western folk and violating their Code of Honour, Her presence is provocative to all young men in the Basin, but to Cal Thurman in particular she is "like a firebrand in prairie grass." Through Cal she finds a love she does not expect - and a heritage of violence she cannot control.
Sounds exciting right? A Violent Culture Clash? What is that! I'll tell you though, its not half as interesting as it sounds. The violence is barely existent until the last 30 - 20 pages of the book. Like I said earlier, the story starts out great. Mary Stockwell plays a joke on the boys at the ranch she boards at by asking them to pick up her dour looking sister. Of course, Georgiana is absolutely gorgeous but the boys don't know that. The book is all fun until Georgiana arrives, and then it goes downhill from there. Now granted by the time he wrote Code of the West, Zane Grey was pumping out books at a pace of 1 to 2 books a year. Naturally when you're producing books at that rate, the quality is bound to flag. But once Georgiana arrives, every single person in the book loses any semblance of a character. Cal is a sullen cowboy in love, Georgiana is a flirtatious urban girl, and every other person in the book - except Tuck Merry - is a cowboy looking for trouble.
Perhaps even worse than the bad storytelling, is the insult the book makes towards feminists. One minute Georgiana is all full of fire and feminism, set on having her way. But the second that Cal acts like a caveman and literally kidnaps her to make her marry him, she has a change of heart and can suddenly understand why western women are the way they are. Suddenly she understands how to manage the home and she was made for that her whole life. Also, she's completely unable to be angry at Cal for kidnapping her and forcing her into marriage and she grows to realize she's always loved him.
In the midst of this pathetic dribble is the violence of Cal beating another young cowboy Bid Hatfield for saying slanderous things about his "now" wife. (Well more like trying to beat.) When he returns home bruised and broken, Georgiana resolves to make everything right that her scandalous flirting has ruined! On the one hand, her actions are satisfying because she takes Tuck Merry and has her say about Bid Hatfield right there in front of his boss. Way to stand up for herself! On the other hand, Tuck Merry beats the living daylights out of Bid, so so much for the strong girl rectifying everything on her own.
I will most likely never read another Zane Grey novel again. Luckily, there are no others on my list. I like to think that my Great Grandfather also didn't care for the books. But I figure that's rather modern wishful thinking. Although, from the small time I knew him, my Great Grandfather did seem like a forward thinking man. I leave that question to be settled for the next book, Roots by Alex Haley. As it has been on my own list for a while I can't wait to cross it off.
'Till the next book, patient readers.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Zane Grey
With Pictures!
So last time I said that I would be reading Zane Grey's Code of the West and I am currently halfway through the book. So far I'm really enjoying reading the book, though the going has been slow because of the prose and my personal commitments. Not that I don't like the prose but after a few pages filled with how glorious the Arizona landscape is, you get a little tired. There are some problems I'm having with the book - mainly the slight patriarchal line running through it but I can accept that as a product of its time. (1923) It is nowhere near the level of the Decameron. That being said, I decided I wanted to do a little research on Zane Grey since I'm halfway through this novel.
Pearl Zane Gray was born in 1892 in Zanesville, Ohio. That is how every single biography starts about him online. Apparently Zanesville is named after his mother's family, who settled it. The family's name was changed to Grey sometime after Zane was born. It did not take him long to drop the Pearl from his name. I would like to argue that his books about the west, very geared towards rugged masculinity, might have something to do with him being named Pearl. But that might be a more modern interpretation of it. Perhaps the name Pearl was considered a masculine name in the 1890s.
Zane Grey lived a very interesting life, full of the excitement of fishing, writing, baseball, and dentistry. To appease his dentist father, Zane Grey got into the University of Pennsylvania's Dentistry Department on a baseball scholarship. He graduated and went on to play semi-professional baseball with an occasional dabbling in dentistry. He married Lina Elise Roth, who he decidedly renamed Dolly. (Personally I know that I should be like "Oh! How sweet. He had a pet name for his wife," but since everything from then on refers to her as Dolly I am slightly insulted. She had a name for crying out loud.)
His wife made him famous, mostly because she pushed him to write and (before they were married) paid him to publish his first novel. His third novel, his first western, became the novel that launched him into stardom. I have no idea how many books he wrote but when he died he left behind 20 manuscripts which were all published. There is no doubt that Zane Grey was a prolific author. He also dabbled in film, owning a company that produced films of his novels but it was eventually sold to what would become Paramount Films.
Fun to note, Zane Grey was so popular that there was a museum made out of a house that he owned in Lackawaxen Pennsylvania. It is currently owned by the National Park Service as part of the Upper Delaware Park. I found a picture at the National Park website and now I kind of want to go check it out.
Grey was definitely an interesting man and today has a huge following. Mostly by people who can't accept change and who think that the Simple West (which never existed, historically) is an ideal that we should try to live by today. There is a website, I looked through it, I'm not sharing its address because it annoyed me. But boy did they try to push living by a western code.
It is interesting to note that the response by these people to our modern times almost exactly mirrors the response of Grey's ranch hand characters in Code of the West to the freedom of the 1920s. The things that stay the same. That being said, with feminism on the rise - much like it was in the 1920s, and the insistence for increasing regulation - much like in the 1930s - its not surprising to see people today turning to books like Zane Grey's to grasp a concept of simplicity and rightness. After all, in the west you follow your own law, guns are necessary, and women mind the home in the homestead. (The last is actually something the lead character said to the lead heroine.)
The correlations between this book's setting and my own is slightly unsettling. I wonder if my great grandfather did read this. Was it simply an interest in westerns? Or was it simply boyhood reading, since his version was a second reprint in 1934. I wonder what he thought about the book?
So last time I said that I would be reading Zane Grey's Code of the West and I am currently halfway through the book. So far I'm really enjoying reading the book, though the going has been slow because of the prose and my personal commitments. Not that I don't like the prose but after a few pages filled with how glorious the Arizona landscape is, you get a little tired. There are some problems I'm having with the book - mainly the slight patriarchal line running through it but I can accept that as a product of its time. (1923) It is nowhere near the level of the Decameron. That being said, I decided I wanted to do a little research on Zane Grey since I'm halfway through this novel.
Pearl Zane Gray was born in 1892 in Zanesville, Ohio. That is how every single biography starts about him online. Apparently Zanesville is named after his mother's family, who settled it. The family's name was changed to Grey sometime after Zane was born. It did not take him long to drop the Pearl from his name. I would like to argue that his books about the west, very geared towards rugged masculinity, might have something to do with him being named Pearl. But that might be a more modern interpretation of it. Perhaps the name Pearl was considered a masculine name in the 1890s.
Zane Grey lived a very interesting life, full of the excitement of fishing, writing, baseball, and dentistry. To appease his dentist father, Zane Grey got into the University of Pennsylvania's Dentistry Department on a baseball scholarship. He graduated and went on to play semi-professional baseball with an occasional dabbling in dentistry. He married Lina Elise Roth, who he decidedly renamed Dolly. (Personally I know that I should be like "Oh! How sweet. He had a pet name for his wife," but since everything from then on refers to her as Dolly I am slightly insulted. She had a name for crying out loud.)
 |
| Zane and Dolly on the Delaware. Courtesy of the National Park Service. |
 |
| Zane Grey at the Filming of Riders of the Purple Sage. Courtesy of the National Park Service. |
 |
| Zane Grey Museum. Courtesy of the National Park Service. |
It is interesting to note that the response by these people to our modern times almost exactly mirrors the response of Grey's ranch hand characters in Code of the West to the freedom of the 1920s. The things that stay the same. That being said, with feminism on the rise - much like it was in the 1920s, and the insistence for increasing regulation - much like in the 1930s - its not surprising to see people today turning to books like Zane Grey's to grasp a concept of simplicity and rightness. After all, in the west you follow your own law, guns are necessary, and women mind the home in the homestead. (The last is actually something the lead character said to the lead heroine.)
The correlations between this book's setting and my own is slightly unsettling. I wonder if my great grandfather did read this. Was it simply an interest in westerns? Or was it simply boyhood reading, since his version was a second reprint in 1934. I wonder what he thought about the book?
Saturday, June 21, 2014
The Decameron of Boccaccio Final
I completely skimmed this book.
After reading halfway through it, of course. I believe that I'm covered by skimming it, because technically I finished it. (I even read the conclusion.) I just didn't read every single one of the 100 1/2 stories inside it. I say 100 and 1/2 because Boccaccio started the Fourth Day with a rant about how people need to stop telling him that he spends too much time with women. In this rant, he told a small story as an example, but he only told half of it and for all that I looked in the book - I never did find the other half. Which is annoying.
Outside of that, the book does say a lot about medieval attitudes, or at least the attitudes of the well off. There is, sadly, only one occurrence of a voice from the lower class and it is merely a bawdy old woman - servant - complaining about a man that told her that he knows more about virginity than she does. Which, as proven by the revelers, he did not. First, what was slightly surprising to me, in the medieval ages the clergy was seen as ridiculous. But you still must believe in God, God is great. But the friars, monks, and pope - all shameless sexual deviants - the lot of them. Women, too restrained by Boccaccio's standards. On the one hand, Boccaccio seemed to be arguing - especially in his conclusion - that women should be allowed to hear dirty stories and should give up pretending to be pure. At least, that was my reading of his message. Brown University's page points out that women were seen as having greater sexual desire, so perhaps this is why Boccaccio constantly pointed out that women enjoyed sex.
However, even though women should enjoy sex, they should not be unfaithful. Here is where patriarchy makes all men hypocrites. In his stories, men were to be praised for their successes in sleeping with other men's wives. But women, women were to be censured for sleeping with men other than their husbands. For example, in one tale - a monk meets with a woman who has a very stupid husband. He persuades her, very cleverly, to do away with her husband - tells her how - and then proceeds to enjoy her. At the end of the story, he is lauded by the revelers as being so clever. This doesn't mean that men weren't punished for their actions as well. The prince that steals away the neighboring kingdom's princess is killed in the process. The man who slanders another man's faithful wife to win a bet, is brought before a king and punished. But in each of these tales, the men go above and beyond in their attempts to win their desired goal. Love and money.
To be honest, although a good portion of the stories seemed repetitive, the book does provide a good insight into 14th century Italian life. The mention of other kingdoms, like England, was especially interesting. It was very easy to get a grasp on the Italian world view at the time - which existed of the Mediterranean, Turkey, and some other portions of Europe. The discussion of Muslims was interesting as well, though only one or two stories mentioned them. Mostly the women were considered looser, and in some cases a bit smarter, than the European women. Cleverness in all people was praised. If I could only read a selection of stories from The Decameron I would probably have enjoyed it more, but trying to read all 100 1/2 was just too much for me.
For my next book I'm starting the Code of the West by Zane Grey. I've heard that Zane Grey is fantastic, and I know he was once very popular, so I'm excited to finally start reading one of his novels. 'Til next time, may you all enjoy a very good book. (That is not The Decameron, unless you like that sort of thing.)
After reading halfway through it, of course. I believe that I'm covered by skimming it, because technically I finished it. (I even read the conclusion.) I just didn't read every single one of the 100 1/2 stories inside it. I say 100 and 1/2 because Boccaccio started the Fourth Day with a rant about how people need to stop telling him that he spends too much time with women. In this rant, he told a small story as an example, but he only told half of it and for all that I looked in the book - I never did find the other half. Which is annoying.
Outside of that, the book does say a lot about medieval attitudes, or at least the attitudes of the well off. There is, sadly, only one occurrence of a voice from the lower class and it is merely a bawdy old woman - servant - complaining about a man that told her that he knows more about virginity than she does. Which, as proven by the revelers, he did not. First, what was slightly surprising to me, in the medieval ages the clergy was seen as ridiculous. But you still must believe in God, God is great. But the friars, monks, and pope - all shameless sexual deviants - the lot of them. Women, too restrained by Boccaccio's standards. On the one hand, Boccaccio seemed to be arguing - especially in his conclusion - that women should be allowed to hear dirty stories and should give up pretending to be pure. At least, that was my reading of his message. Brown University's page points out that women were seen as having greater sexual desire, so perhaps this is why Boccaccio constantly pointed out that women enjoyed sex.
However, even though women should enjoy sex, they should not be unfaithful. Here is where patriarchy makes all men hypocrites. In his stories, men were to be praised for their successes in sleeping with other men's wives. But women, women were to be censured for sleeping with men other than their husbands. For example, in one tale - a monk meets with a woman who has a very stupid husband. He persuades her, very cleverly, to do away with her husband - tells her how - and then proceeds to enjoy her. At the end of the story, he is lauded by the revelers as being so clever. This doesn't mean that men weren't punished for their actions as well. The prince that steals away the neighboring kingdom's princess is killed in the process. The man who slanders another man's faithful wife to win a bet, is brought before a king and punished. But in each of these tales, the men go above and beyond in their attempts to win their desired goal. Love and money.
To be honest, although a good portion of the stories seemed repetitive, the book does provide a good insight into 14th century Italian life. The mention of other kingdoms, like England, was especially interesting. It was very easy to get a grasp on the Italian world view at the time - which existed of the Mediterranean, Turkey, and some other portions of Europe. The discussion of Muslims was interesting as well, though only one or two stories mentioned them. Mostly the women were considered looser, and in some cases a bit smarter, than the European women. Cleverness in all people was praised. If I could only read a selection of stories from The Decameron I would probably have enjoyed it more, but trying to read all 100 1/2 was just too much for me.
For my next book I'm starting the Code of the West by Zane Grey. I've heard that Zane Grey is fantastic, and I know he was once very popular, so I'm excited to finally start reading one of his novels. 'Til next time, may you all enjoy a very good book. (That is not The Decameron, unless you like that sort of thing.)
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke is far too technical.
Okay, maybe I'm just a bit too much of a romantic in that I prefer a bit of story with my science fiction and writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.G. Wells. Arthur C. Clarke's Sands of Mars, while entertaining in parts, made for a long read. For a book that I expected to finish in a week, I certainly didn't think I'd take almost three. But its done and I should back-track a little. As anyone following this knows, I took a break from the Decameron because its Medieval and dense. Having finished the Sands of Mars, I still have no desire to return to the book. Especially because Sands of Mars was technical and dense. What I'll probably do is start on the collection of Oscar Wilde's works that I have on the list. My plan is to read a day of the Decameron and then cool my brain off with one or two of Oscar Wilde's writings. (Maybe five if I'm working on the poems.) Otherwise I'm just going to have to abandon the book, and I'd really hate to do that so early in the project. (We'll see about later.) Because I'll be multi-tasking I will post about both books, but they will be treated separately. If that means two short posts on them once in a while then so be it.
But to stop digressing, let me talk about this book. The Sands of Mars was Arthur C. Clarke's first novel, written in the 1940s. The version I purchased was not the same as Joe's, which was published in 1952 and wouldn't have had the introductions that mine did. My version was published in the late '70s and contained two introductions from Clarke that explained the type of novel it was, apologized for the science in it, and explained that the science was based on what people thought at the time. Yes, from the introductions I probably should have been sufficiently warned that this book would be what it was. However, I went into it with a excited mind, ready to see what an, unknown to me, sci-fi writer would imagine about a colony on Mars.
The science was mildly absurd, I just want to point that out now. I'll get to it later. The book is about Martin Gibson, a famous science fiction author who is offered the chance to go to the new colony on Mars to introduce it to Earth. They say write what you know, right? Well, the first half of the book is dedicated to the trip to Mars and the second half is dedicated to Gibson's experiences there. As far as storyline, the book is a bit flat. But before I get into my criticisms, I would like to point out what Clarke did well. For one, there are his descriptions. Although on the technical side, Clarke didn't make the descriptions hard for readers to understand. Which I have to commend him for because that is a tough skill to master. In fact, it was very easy to imagine the ship he flew to Mars in, the planet, the colony, and even the plants there. (Yeah there were plants.) Like all science fiction, there are small pieces of foresight in the book that apply to today. For example, this article in USA Today about landing astronauts on Mars. Just like in his book where the Earth kept threatening to cut off funding to the Mars colony, funding is an issue for expeditions today. Also Clarke's main characters were relatively realistic, if not easy to relate with.
Other than that, the story is borderline cliche. If this wasn't a science-fiction, and Clarke didn't have the technical stuff I would be incredibly bored. In the story Gibson finds that he is actually traveling on a ship in which his son is crew, a son he never knew he had. Their relationship is a backdrop for the adjustment that Gibson is making to life on Mars. Its probably an attempt to make Gibson more relate-able but is really just a distraction for the bigger story of the secret project that the colonists are hiding from Earth. They turn the moon Phobos into a mini sun using nuclear reactions, by blowing it up without blowing it up? I'm not very good with physics but I'm pretty sure that's not how that works. Added on to this story's defunctionality is the constant foreshadowing that Clarke does throughout the book. Its like he doesn't think that the reader will remember what Gibson just discovered is important in the next few pages, so he decides to point out it is important immediately. Towards the end, when they just kept piling on top of each other, it got to the point of being annoying. And then after placing it in his reader's minds that it's an important point, he barely deals with it and spends only a sentence or two on the reveal. And although he details the most minute workings of a machine, he can't bother to detail a single important aspect that deals with the characters of the story.
But this is starting to turn into a rant so I am going to back off now. Overall I was left with rather mixed feelings about the story. The ending, sad to say, disappointed me immensely. It didn't feel finished, but I can forgive that because colonizing never is and given the subject its acceptable. However, it felt flat, just flat. This book was flat, that is the best description I can think of for it. Flat. (Oh no, ranting is too easy... must stop... thinking about... flaws... Starting... over...)
I have mixed feelings about this book. I really think that's probably where I should leave it. I will point out that some of the ideas were really interesting. The science was awesome and although I know that Mars is nothing like what Clarke described, part of me kind of wishes it was. The book does speak to a desire to (to paraphrase Star Trek) seek out new life and new civilizations, go where no man has gone before. As for my ancestors, I'm definitely starting to see where I get my own love of science fiction. My brother's obsession with science and all things related makes a lot more sense after this book. I also feel slightly justified in my mixed feelings of Clarke's first novel. After all, there's only one Arthur C. Clarke in the list of books compared to at least 8 Wells novels. ;P
Okay, maybe I'm just a bit too much of a romantic in that I prefer a bit of story with my science fiction and writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.G. Wells. Arthur C. Clarke's Sands of Mars, while entertaining in parts, made for a long read. For a book that I expected to finish in a week, I certainly didn't think I'd take almost three. But its done and I should back-track a little. As anyone following this knows, I took a break from the Decameron because its Medieval and dense. Having finished the Sands of Mars, I still have no desire to return to the book. Especially because Sands of Mars was technical and dense. What I'll probably do is start on the collection of Oscar Wilde's works that I have on the list. My plan is to read a day of the Decameron and then cool my brain off with one or two of Oscar Wilde's writings. (Maybe five if I'm working on the poems.) Otherwise I'm just going to have to abandon the book, and I'd really hate to do that so early in the project. (We'll see about later.) Because I'll be multi-tasking I will post about both books, but they will be treated separately. If that means two short posts on them once in a while then so be it.
But to stop digressing, let me talk about this book. The Sands of Mars was Arthur C. Clarke's first novel, written in the 1940s. The version I purchased was not the same as Joe's, which was published in 1952 and wouldn't have had the introductions that mine did. My version was published in the late '70s and contained two introductions from Clarke that explained the type of novel it was, apologized for the science in it, and explained that the science was based on what people thought at the time. Yes, from the introductions I probably should have been sufficiently warned that this book would be what it was. However, I went into it with a excited mind, ready to see what an, unknown to me, sci-fi writer would imagine about a colony on Mars.
The science was mildly absurd, I just want to point that out now. I'll get to it later. The book is about Martin Gibson, a famous science fiction author who is offered the chance to go to the new colony on Mars to introduce it to Earth. They say write what you know, right? Well, the first half of the book is dedicated to the trip to Mars and the second half is dedicated to Gibson's experiences there. As far as storyline, the book is a bit flat. But before I get into my criticisms, I would like to point out what Clarke did well. For one, there are his descriptions. Although on the technical side, Clarke didn't make the descriptions hard for readers to understand. Which I have to commend him for because that is a tough skill to master. In fact, it was very easy to imagine the ship he flew to Mars in, the planet, the colony, and even the plants there. (Yeah there were plants.) Like all science fiction, there are small pieces of foresight in the book that apply to today. For example, this article in USA Today about landing astronauts on Mars. Just like in his book where the Earth kept threatening to cut off funding to the Mars colony, funding is an issue for expeditions today. Also Clarke's main characters were relatively realistic, if not easy to relate with.
Other than that, the story is borderline cliche. If this wasn't a science-fiction, and Clarke didn't have the technical stuff I would be incredibly bored. In the story Gibson finds that he is actually traveling on a ship in which his son is crew, a son he never knew he had. Their relationship is a backdrop for the adjustment that Gibson is making to life on Mars. Its probably an attempt to make Gibson more relate-able but is really just a distraction for the bigger story of the secret project that the colonists are hiding from Earth. They turn the moon Phobos into a mini sun using nuclear reactions, by blowing it up without blowing it up? I'm not very good with physics but I'm pretty sure that's not how that works. Added on to this story's defunctionality is the constant foreshadowing that Clarke does throughout the book. Its like he doesn't think that the reader will remember what Gibson just discovered is important in the next few pages, so he decides to point out it is important immediately. Towards the end, when they just kept piling on top of each other, it got to the point of being annoying. And then after placing it in his reader's minds that it's an important point, he barely deals with it and spends only a sentence or two on the reveal. And although he details the most minute workings of a machine, he can't bother to detail a single important aspect that deals with the characters of the story.
But this is starting to turn into a rant so I am going to back off now. Overall I was left with rather mixed feelings about the story. The ending, sad to say, disappointed me immensely. It didn't feel finished, but I can forgive that because colonizing never is and given the subject its acceptable. However, it felt flat, just flat. This book was flat, that is the best description I can think of for it. Flat. (Oh no, ranting is too easy... must stop... thinking about... flaws... Starting... over...)
I have mixed feelings about this book. I really think that's probably where I should leave it. I will point out that some of the ideas were really interesting. The science was awesome and although I know that Mars is nothing like what Clarke described, part of me kind of wishes it was. The book does speak to a desire to (to paraphrase Star Trek) seek out new life and new civilizations, go where no man has gone before. As for my ancestors, I'm definitely starting to see where I get my own love of science fiction. My brother's obsession with science and all things related makes a lot more sense after this book. I also feel slightly justified in my mixed feelings of Clarke's first novel. After all, there's only one Arthur C. Clarke in the list of books compared to at least 8 Wells novels. ;P
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Taking a Break from The Decameron
Part of me really wants to scream right now that I can't take it anymore. The Decameron is so dense and the medieval viewpoint of women is committing a full frontal assault on my modern sensibilities. So in order to stay sane, I'm going to take a week's break from the Decameron and use the time to read Arthur C. Clarke's Sands of Mars. I'll do my best not to drop the Decameron totally, but to be honest I don't know if I'll return to it.
But in light of not having a post chock full of information about Medieval Italy, I thought I would finally produce the list of the books that my Great Grandfather owned. This list may be updated in the future, if I ever make it out to my grandparents house, but as of now it contains a full list of the books my mother owns and an almost complete list of the books owned by my Uncle Jimmy.
Obviously I'm a History student because anyone with knowledge of citations will see that I have completed the list using Turabians Chicago Style.(A style drilled into our skulls in history classes in college.) The meanings of the notations beside each item are listed below.
But in light of not having a post chock full of information about Medieval Italy, I thought I would finally produce the list of the books that my Great Grandfather owned. This list may be updated in the future, if I ever make it out to my grandparents house, but as of now it contains a full list of the books my mother owns and an almost complete list of the books owned by my Uncle Jimmy.
Obviously I'm a History student because anyone with knowledge of citations will see that I have completed the list using Turabians Chicago Style.(A style drilled into our skulls in history classes in college.) The meanings of the notations beside each item are listed below.
*A
World of Great Stories. New York: Crown Publishers, 1947.
*Alfred Hitchcock Presents: A Month of Mystery. New York: Random House, 1969.
*Alfred Hitchcock Presents: My Favorites in Suspense. New York: Random House, 1959.
*Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories That Scared Even Me. New York: Random House, 1967.
*Allen, Hervey. Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allen Poe. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., 1934.
Bailey, Alice A. Problems of Humanity. New York: Lucis Publishing Co., 1947.
°Baird, A.T. One-Hundred Cases for Survival after Death. New York: Bernard Ackerman, 1944.
*Balzac, Honoré De. Droll Stories. New York: Garden City Books, 1946.
°Beecroft, John, ed. Kipling: A Selection of his Stories and Poems. 2 vols. Garden City: Doubleday and Co., 1956.
°____ and Howard Haycraft, eds. Ten Great Mysteries. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1959.
°Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron of Boccaccio. Universal Classics.
-Bridges, William. Wild Animals of the World. Garden City: Publishing Inc., 1944.
°Burton, Richard F. trans. The Arabian Nights. New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1941.
*Busch, Niven. The Hate Merchant. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953.
*Cain, James M. The Postman Always Rings Twice. New York: Triangle Books, 1938.
°Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quixote. Edited by Richard Emery Roberts. Translated by P.A. Molluex and Charles Jarvis. New York: Book League of America, 1946.
°Clarke, Arthur C. Sands of Mars. Gnome Press, Inc., 1952.
°The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Illustrated by Rockwell Kent. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1936.
*Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species and the Descent of Man. New York: The Modern Library.
-Davies, C.T. The Horse: And How to Care For Him. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Publishing Company, 1911.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Translated by Constance Garnett. Illinois: Illustrated Modern Library, 1944.
_____. The Idiot. Vol. 2. Translated by Constance Garnett. Macmillian, 1916.
°_____. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by Constance Garnett. Modern Library, 1929.
*Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. New York: Garden City Books, 1930.
-Ellison, Charles. The Fundamentals of Window Display. International Textbook Company, 1931.
*Forbes, Esther. Paul Revere and the World he Lived in. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942.
George, W.L. Her Unwelcome Husband. Harper and Brothers, 1922.
Goodwin, Ernest. The Duchess of Siona. Illustrated by W.T. Benda. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918.
°Grey, Zane. Code of the West. New York: P.F. Collier and Son, 1934.
*Gunther, John. Inside Africa. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955.
°Haley, Alex. Roots. Garden City: Doubleday, 1976.
*Haggard, Henry Rider. She. New York: Books Inc., 1886.
-Harrison, E.S. A Beginner Spanish Reader. Ginn and Co., 1917.
-_____. An Intermediate Spanish Reader. Ginn and Co., 1917.
*Hart, Frances Noyes. The Bellamy Trial. New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1927.
-Harte, Bret. Bret Harte’s Writings: Tales of the Argonauts and Other Sketches. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1903.
-Hawks, Ellison. Bees Shown to the Child. New York: Platt and Peck Co.
*Hemingway, Ernest. Death in the Afternoon. New York: P.F. Collier and Son, 1938.
*____. For Whom the Bell Tolls.
*____. The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953.
*Hersey, John. The War Lover. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959.
Herzberg, Max J. Myths and their Meanings. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1931.
*Hewlett, Maurice. The Forest Lovers. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1898.
-The Home Mechanic’s Handbook. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company Inc., 1945.
How and Why Wonder Book of Reptiles and Amphibians. Wonder Books Inc., 1960.
Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. 1914.
_____. Les Miserables. Translated by Lacelles Wraxall.
_____. Toilers of the Sea. New York: Hurst and Co., 1922.
°Jackson, Helen Hunt. Ramona. New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1912.
*Joyce, James. Ulysses.
Lawrence, D.H. Sons and Lovers. Viking Press, 1963.
°Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird.
*London, Jack. The Cruise of the Snark. New York: The Review of Reviews Company, 1917.
Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwer. The Last Days of Pompeii. Spencer Press, 1936.
Mailer, Norman. Barbary Shore. Rhinehart and Co., Inc., 1951.
Masterpieces of British Literature. Riverside Press, 1895.
Maugham, W. Somerset, ed. Tellers of Tales. New York: Doubleday, Doran, and Co., 1939.
*Maughan, A. W. Harry of Monmouth. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1956.
°Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Spencer Press, 1936.
*Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago. New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1958.*Poe, Edgar Allen. Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Spencer Press, 1936.
-Queen, Ellery. Challenge to the Reader: An Anthology. New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1940.
Shirer, William L. Berlin Diary. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941.
°Sienkiewicz, Henryk. Quo Vadis. Translated by Jeremiah Curtain. Book League of America, 1925.
°Stevenson, Robert. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde/Kidnapped. Popular Classics Inc.,
*Susann, Jacqueline. Valley of the Dolls. New York: Bernard Geis Associates, 1966.
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. Translated by Constance Garnett. New York: Illustrated Modern Library.
Verne, Jules. From the Earth to the Moon. New York: Lovell Brothers and Co.,
*____. The Lighthouse at the End of the World. New York: G. Howard Watt, 1924.
°_____. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1911.
*Waltari, Mika. The Wanderer. Translated by Naomi Walford. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1951.
-Webling, W. Hastings. Fore!: The Call of the Links. H.M. Caldwell Co., 1909.*Wells, H.G. 7 Science Fiction Novels of H.G. Wells. New York: Dover Publications, 1950.
*____. 28 Science Fiction Stories of H.G. Wells. New York: Dover Publications, 1952.
°_____. Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island. Illustrated by George Picken. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1928.
*____. The Croquet Player. New York: The Viking Press, 1937.
*____. The Holy Terror. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939.
_ ___. The Outline of History. 4 vols. Macmillion, 1920.
*____. Tono-Bungay. New York: The Modern Library, 1935.
*____. Twelve Stories and a Dream. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924.
White, E.B. and K.S. White. A Sub-Treasury of American Humor. New York: Coward-Mclann Inc., 1941.
°Wilde, Oscar. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde.
Williams, H. P. Our Moon. Frederich Muller LTD, 1954.
Wren, Percival C. Beau Ideal. New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1929.
_____. Beau Sabreur. New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1929.
_____. Good Gestes. New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1929.
*Alfred Hitchcock Presents: A Month of Mystery. New York: Random House, 1969.
*Alfred Hitchcock Presents: My Favorites in Suspense. New York: Random House, 1959.
*Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories That Scared Even Me. New York: Random House, 1967.
*Allen, Hervey. Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allen Poe. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., 1934.
Bailey, Alice A. Problems of Humanity. New York: Lucis Publishing Co., 1947.
°Baird, A.T. One-Hundred Cases for Survival after Death. New York: Bernard Ackerman, 1944.
*Balzac, Honoré De. Droll Stories. New York: Garden City Books, 1946.
°Beecroft, John, ed. Kipling: A Selection of his Stories and Poems. 2 vols. Garden City: Doubleday and Co., 1956.
°____ and Howard Haycraft, eds. Ten Great Mysteries. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1959.
°Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron of Boccaccio. Universal Classics.
-Bridges, William. Wild Animals of the World. Garden City: Publishing Inc., 1944.
°Burton, Richard F. trans. The Arabian Nights. New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1941.
*Busch, Niven. The Hate Merchant. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953.
*Cain, James M. The Postman Always Rings Twice. New York: Triangle Books, 1938.
°Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quixote. Edited by Richard Emery Roberts. Translated by P.A. Molluex and Charles Jarvis. New York: Book League of America, 1946.
°Clarke, Arthur C. Sands of Mars. Gnome Press, Inc., 1952.
°The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Illustrated by Rockwell Kent. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1936.
*Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species and the Descent of Man. New York: The Modern Library.
-Davies, C.T. The Horse: And How to Care For Him. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Publishing Company, 1911.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Translated by Constance Garnett. Illinois: Illustrated Modern Library, 1944.
_____. The Idiot. Vol. 2. Translated by Constance Garnett. Macmillian, 1916.
°_____. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by Constance Garnett. Modern Library, 1929.
*Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. New York: Garden City Books, 1930.
-Ellison, Charles. The Fundamentals of Window Display. International Textbook Company, 1931.
*Forbes, Esther. Paul Revere and the World he Lived in. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942.
George, W.L. Her Unwelcome Husband. Harper and Brothers, 1922.
Goodwin, Ernest. The Duchess of Siona. Illustrated by W.T. Benda. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918.
°Grey, Zane. Code of the West. New York: P.F. Collier and Son, 1934.
*Gunther, John. Inside Africa. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955.
°Haley, Alex. Roots. Garden City: Doubleday, 1976.
*Haggard, Henry Rider. She. New York: Books Inc., 1886.
-Harrison, E.S. A Beginner Spanish Reader. Ginn and Co., 1917.
-_____. An Intermediate Spanish Reader. Ginn and Co., 1917.
*Hart, Frances Noyes. The Bellamy Trial. New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1927.
-Harte, Bret. Bret Harte’s Writings: Tales of the Argonauts and Other Sketches. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1903.
-Hawks, Ellison. Bees Shown to the Child. New York: Platt and Peck Co.
*Hemingway, Ernest. Death in the Afternoon. New York: P.F. Collier and Son, 1938.
*____. For Whom the Bell Tolls.
*____. The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953.
*Hersey, John. The War Lover. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959.
Herzberg, Max J. Myths and their Meanings. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1931.
*Hewlett, Maurice. The Forest Lovers. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1898.
-The Home Mechanic’s Handbook. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company Inc., 1945.
How and Why Wonder Book of Reptiles and Amphibians. Wonder Books Inc., 1960.
Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. 1914.
_____. Les Miserables. Translated by Lacelles Wraxall.
_____. Toilers of the Sea. New York: Hurst and Co., 1922.
°Jackson, Helen Hunt. Ramona. New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1912.
*Joyce, James. Ulysses.
Lawrence, D.H. Sons and Lovers. Viking Press, 1963.
°Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird.
*London, Jack. The Cruise of the Snark. New York: The Review of Reviews Company, 1917.
Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwer. The Last Days of Pompeii. Spencer Press, 1936.
Mailer, Norman. Barbary Shore. Rhinehart and Co., Inc., 1951.
Masterpieces of British Literature. Riverside Press, 1895.
Maugham, W. Somerset, ed. Tellers of Tales. New York: Doubleday, Doran, and Co., 1939.
*Maughan, A. W. Harry of Monmouth. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1956.
°Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Spencer Press, 1936.
*Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago. New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1958.*Poe, Edgar Allen. Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Spencer Press, 1936.
-Queen, Ellery. Challenge to the Reader: An Anthology. New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1940.
Shirer, William L. Berlin Diary. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941.
°Sienkiewicz, Henryk. Quo Vadis. Translated by Jeremiah Curtain. Book League of America, 1925.
°Stevenson, Robert. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde/Kidnapped. Popular Classics Inc.,
*Susann, Jacqueline. Valley of the Dolls. New York: Bernard Geis Associates, 1966.
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. Translated by Constance Garnett. New York: Illustrated Modern Library.
Verne, Jules. From the Earth to the Moon. New York: Lovell Brothers and Co.,
*____. The Lighthouse at the End of the World. New York: G. Howard Watt, 1924.
°_____. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1911.
*Waltari, Mika. The Wanderer. Translated by Naomi Walford. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1951.
-Webling, W. Hastings. Fore!: The Call of the Links. H.M. Caldwell Co., 1909.*Wells, H.G. 7 Science Fiction Novels of H.G. Wells. New York: Dover Publications, 1950.
*____. 28 Science Fiction Stories of H.G. Wells. New York: Dover Publications, 1952.
°_____. Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island. Illustrated by George Picken. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1928.
*____. The Croquet Player. New York: The Viking Press, 1937.
*____. The Holy Terror. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939.
_ ___. The Outline of History. 4 vols. Macmillion, 1920.
*____. Tono-Bungay. New York: The Modern Library, 1935.
*____. Twelve Stories and a Dream. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924.
White, E.B. and K.S. White. A Sub-Treasury of American Humor. New York: Coward-Mclann Inc., 1941.
°Wilde, Oscar. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde.
Williams, H. P. Our Moon. Frederich Muller LTD, 1954.
Wren, Percival C. Beau Ideal. New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1929.
_____. Beau Sabreur. New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1929.
_____. Good Gestes. New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1929.
*Indicates books owned by my Uncle.
-Indicates books I believe I cannot find or will not read.
°Indicates books I own already, have purchased, or can borrow from the library.
Indicates books I've read
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