BTT: Staying Power

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

Today’s question was suggested by Barbara:

Do you think any current author is of the same caliber as Dickens, Austen, Bronte, or any of the classic authors? If so, who, and why do you think so? If not, why not? What books from this era might be read 100 years from now?

Well, if you’ve been here (on my blog) for a post or maybe two, you know that Dickens and Austen aren’t my favorites but I’ll try to answer this question the best I can.

In my mind, Wilde, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Swift, and Wells are the ones to keep a hold of. The witty, the poignant, the classic, the satirical, the dreamy, the philosophical. In that respect, I am a terrible judge for what will be considered classic writing in years to come. I’d like to say Rushdie. I’d like to say Pynchon. I’d like to say Eco. Do people read them, today? I’m not sure they do. Does that mean they won’t eventually? I’m not sure.

I think that a lot has changed since the says of Dickens and Austen. There were fewer reading options both in the sense that fewer people read and there was simply less coming to the shelves. In the days of Victoria, only the upper crust had the means to read, thus making stuffy,  unlovable “classics” the top of the list. These days, anyone who has $15 bucks or a library card can be well read.

To me, Dickens and Austen are not fine literature but simply what a few deemed popular in the moment. I’m sure that King and Grisham will be remembered fondly by many as they hit the best seller lists often. I’d prefer for people to remember Nick Laird and David Eggers. Will they? Will cult classics inch their way into the public catalog of books that were? Only time will tell, won’t it?

The Maze Runner ~ James Dashner

Genre: YA

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

384 pages

ISBN: 9780385737944

Take Lost, The Lord of the Flies, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a little bit of Newsies and you’ll have Dashner’s The Maze Runner. This hodgepodge of themes seems like it might be confusing, at first, but, trust me: it works.

Thomas, our young protagonist, finds himself, memory-free and huddled on a lift in the middle of a paradise, surrounded by several dozen teenage boys. Their slang is strange and so is their predicament. Every month for two years, the lift Thomas rode up on, delivers a new boy to the pack. Not a single one remembers his life prior to his arrival. The veteran boys know little more about their future aside from attempting to complete a maze that stands outside their compound.

The day after Thomas arrives, a girl appears. Not only is she the first XX to arrive but she is also about a month ahead of schedule for the next due community member. Shortly after her arrival, all begins to crumble, leaving Thomas and and the most recent newcomer in the group’s suspicions. A race beings within the clan to fight for survival even if it means taking their establishment down member by member.

In theory, I loved this book. It was cute. I liked the bromance aspect (see Newsies) and the theory behind the suspense. It had a great outline. Even some of the detail worked. The improv slang was fun and the characters were likable and well put together. I definitely enjoyed more than I didn’t.

That said, I wasn’t a huge fan of the meat of the book. I think, to the book’s credit, it accomplished the feel of disorientation, both for the players within the pages and the reader. While I love  a good mystery, in this case, it left a good deal unexplained, causing an unsatisfied feeling. The ending felt extremely rushed and open.

All that aside, it is a three part series, so with that in mind, I will most likely check out the second and third book to see if having more information makes for a more positive experience.

BTT: Good Until the Bitter End?

“Life is too short to read bad books.” I’d always heard that, but I still read books through until the end no matter how bad they were because I had this sense of obligation.

That is, until this week when I tried (really tried) to read a book that is utterly boring and unrealistic. I had to stop reading.

Do you read everything all the way through or do you feel life really is too short to read bad books?

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

Let’s see, how shall I answer this?  A book is generally 300-500 pages and isn’t all that much of a sacrifice. I think I follow Ben Harper’s “Don’t knock it before you try it” theory, all the way to the end: I can’t justly defend my opinion on a book if I haven’t finished it.

That said, if it’s truly awful, I’ll put it down. Life is certainly not that short but, of course, there is no point at all to doing something that is allegedly for pleasure if it’s going to make you miserable. I’m also more likely to drop a book if it’s from the library as I’ve wasted no resources on it. Although, if I’ve made it a good chunk of the way through the story, I’ll usually keep plugging as my resource, then, becomes time.

Teaser Tuesday: The Maze Runner

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“He began his new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air.”  The Maze Runner by James Dashner p. 1

This One Is Mine ~ Maria Semple

Genre: Adult Fiction

Publisher: Little Brown and Company

289 pages

ISBN: 9780316031165

Violet used to be something. She wrote for T.V. greats and made her snobbishly intellectual family proud. When she married mega music producer David Parry, she found herself slowly slipping away. She quit her job to raise their daughter who now spends all day with a nanny while Violet roams the canyons of Southern California.  David, himself is too absorbed in the industry, to really get to the bottom of the troubles in his life, his wife’s or his younger sister, Sally’s.

Sally, a middle-aged diabetic dancer, has inevitable troubles of her own. She’s still looking for “that someone” and she doesn’t mean romance. She wants a diamond, preferably attached to rising star and future ESPN personality Jeremy White. Scheming is what Sally does well and hijinks, as well as tragedy, ensue.

While the reader doesn’t have to be terribly well-versed in the Russian epic-dramas, if you’ve read Anna Karenina, you’re in for a fun surprise. Many of the scenes and events are linked to Tolstoy’s tragedy, especially Violet’s despondent, self-centered outlook on her life.

The other item of note is the approach Semple took in creating her characters. If the book is not understood as a microcosm for various sects of L.A., it will be fairly unlikable. For anyone who has ever run screaming from the town, or even for a high number of those who have stayed, the dark, albeit hilarious, parody will ring true enough for laughs and tears. The characters are not “likeable” but I find myself time and time again wondering why that is criteria for enjoying a book.

I don’t read books to read about Miss Suzy Sunshine and her perfect life. I want people to echo the ideas we all have but never speak or act on. Pristine, self-less thoughts rarely make good reading material, at least not funny reading material. Dark, questioning, self-conscious ideas people never say aloud, do.

The writing is crisp and snazzy, the images both true and absurd. Semple’s talent translates well from t.v. screen to her first novel debut. This is a must read for the L.A. crowd, or maybe, rather for the recovering-from-L.A. crowd.

Baby Loves…Disco?

So I’m reading this book, right now, that parodies several parenting “fads”. During a book break, I read an article in Parenting about slowing down. It got me thinking. There is significant backlash against hyper-parenting (75 activities in a week, praise at every corner, tv, cell phones, etc.) but of course, 2009 doesn’t do anything in moderation (hence the original problem of hyper-) so there is now a “relaxation” movement in the parenting world but it seems to be just as strict as its reverse technique. I’m not one for rules, so I thought I’d embrace this idea of no praise, no reward, t.v. off (it generally is, anyway), no over parenting, the lot, but it just seems to be yet another “solution” for parenting. I guess I’m again in neither camp as I’ve never thought parenting needed a solution in the first place.

Enough negativity, mom. My main point in bringing up child rearing on the blog was that I needed some literary connection to brag about Baby Loves Disco.

Yesterday, Mom, Dad, and Kai went to The Loft (concert venue in Atlanta) for a great dance party. Kai had a fantastic time and no no it’s not just disco. There was plenty of Heart, Bob Marley and Chili Peppers.The thing I liked about it the best was that it was free. Not monetarily but in action. There was a DJ from the local alternative radio station but she basically led the progression of music more than the actual activity. There was a “chill-out” room with hula-hoops and tunnels to crawl through (a two-year old’s version of “chill-out” is different than an adult’s concept).

I’ve been to so many preschools, mom-and-baby activities, story times, where there is too much going on. Too much structure and no room for movement or creativity. I really enjoyed the freedom of the event.

In the spirit of doing away with quantifiers, I won’t do a reading recap this week but I will leave you with this:

Eyes Like Stars ~ Lisa Mantchev

Genre: Young Adult

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

352 pages

ISBN: 9780312380960

“The weight of words is far heavier than water,” Ophelia said. “They would drag me to the bottom and hold me captive there.”

As though to prove her wrong, Macbeth backstroked through the vellum waves. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”

Moth considered the proffered appendage. “Nope, you still have jam on you.”

p. 240

I trust that many of you have either read or watched the grand old plays and their myriad spin-offs. Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Man of La Mancha, The Little Mermaid, Westside, well, you get the point.

Readers and Actors are camps that generally flow into one another as both sets are inherently enamored with words. I, for one, had my feet firmly planted in both, early on.

I grew up either on the stage or behind it in one capacity or another, as did my sister, my husband, most of my friends and a sizable chunk of my family. As we grew older most of us dropped the habit for other pursuits but my little sister didn’t. While I still belt out Newsies more than once a week in the middle of Atlanta traffic (usually with my car windows closed), she can still be found running off to rehearsal or read-throughs on any given night.  My running image of her looks about like Beatrice, the title character, on the cover of Eyes Like Stars.

I picked this book up for her, initially. It’s essentially about a girl who grew up in an enchanted theater. An enchanted theater that happens to house every player who has ever been written in script history. Each player is called to his or her scene depending on which play is being produced at the time.

Sounds great, right?

Well, of course, there’s a bit of a catch. The characters are doomed to confinement in said magical place, by order of The Book of scripts. Needless to say, like most seemingly perfect situations, this doesn’t sit well with all and there are forces brewing to bring down the house and I don’t mean by applause.

Mantchev is fantastic in her story weaving. She grabs hold of the root of Hamlet, Ophelia, Macbeth, Peter Pan, the lot, and expertly intertwines the players through each other’s plot lines. The only downside is that it may make you go running for your stack of scripts, leaving you doomed to read through the classics for several weeks. I, myself, have just ordered half of Dear William’s plays from the library as I haven’t read them in some time.

That being the only drawback, I highly recommend this to the theatrical bibliophiles. For anyone who knows the thrill of a raised curtain or the dim of house lights, Eyes Like Stars will bring you to your feet.

BTT: Me Me Me

Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

To be quite honest, and perhaps this is self centered, I don’t prefer either. Well, I prefer, if pressed, biographies, but I would rather stay clear of both. I like nonfiction when it comes to things like science or history but I don’t like bio/autobiographies. I don’t follow celebrities and I find that, often, my heroes are less heroic when their lives are laid out in a 5,00 page book. I also don’t think I’d read a book about someone I don’t like, thus eliminating the other category. Is that entirely too picky?

The Time Machine ~ H. G. Wells

Genre: Adult Fiction

Publisher: Bantam Classics

128 pages

ISBN: 9780553213515

So, last week your friend had a few gentlemen, all learned men, over for cocktails and conversation. He pulled some sort of elaborate parlor trick by which he made a trinket disappear before the party’s eyes. Thinking him a grand magician, indeed, you meet at his house, again, to find the host nowhere in sight. As dinner is about to be served, your man of the hour stumbles in the front door, covered head-to-toe in scrapes and dirt. In one giant breath he tells you fantastic, daring, and quite frankly, unbelievable tales of time travel and life threatening heroics.

Welcome to The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. Said to be one of the first, and still creepiest, science fiction thrillers of all time, the short story is essentially a monologue on culture, disguised as the whimsy of time travel.

Because the story itself is so short and the basics of it rely on the element of surprise, I’ll stop there on the details.

I’ve recently found myself reading the Victorian classics where I’ve always stayed a bit clear of them in the past. Of course, one trip into a Wells book and a reader quickly realizes that it wasn’t all lace and stuffy parlors. He most certainly held no punches regarding his thoughts on the status-quo.

Through a series of  now antiquated, then cutting edge, revelations, he steam rolls over evolutionary predictions and brings pointed accusations at his peers and countrymen, regarding social economics. Allegories both beautiful and sinister could aptly apply to London (or New York), today, those same questions of moral responsibility framed technologically, socially and spiritually.

I have always loved the story but I don’t think I have read it in its entirety in a long time. It’s a great story and I found myself shaking my head and wondering what Wells would think of our technologically dependant, still socially divided society.

The Embers ~ Hyatt Bass

Genre: Adult Fiction

Publisher: Henry Holt & Company

287 pages

ISBN: 9780805089943

There is something so beautiful about the dysfunction of family. It’s certainly not a warm and fuzzy something but it certainly makes for a pretty picture or a great novel. While it is certainly a time-honored theme, the crumbling house-hold novel, Hyatt Bass has created a new and vibrant addition to the genre with her tightly knit story of a tragically unraveled family.

The Aschers are a family plagued by animosity but not without their bright spots. Their youngest member, Emily, is engaged to be married. She is a successful lawyer, and in love with her fiance. Despite her mother’s reservations, or, perhaps, because of them, she has picked the ultimate spot for her vow exchange: the family’s once fun-filled country-home in the Berkshires. While this may ring true as a reflection of any other family’s good times and happy memories, the Ascher’s land is a source and reminder of the rifts that run between mother, wife, daughter, father and husband.

As wedding plans are made, a semi-linear story is molded, jumping incongruously between a pocket of the 90’s to present-day. A young woman’s fears are pushed on her son, daughter and husband, creating lasting effect, an artist’s love of his art threatens to ruin the lives of his loved ones and two children come of age with their own dark and jaded views of commitment, love and life.

There are two different stories told in The Embers, one of how the past became the present and the other of how the present will become the future. Within those two macro stories, there are micro threads that run through, weaving in the voice of each family member. While it seems like a strange device at first, the idea of intermittently rearranging the narrator allows the short book to expand on each character emotionally in a way that usually doesn’t succeed with so many players. It never becomes confusing as each cast member is allotted his or her own distinct, unique voice.

This is not a fairytale and the men and women are certainly not princes nor are they princesses. Each is deeply flawed in his or her own way, often to the point of paralyzing self-doubt or bitter grudge harboring. This does not dampen the mood of the telling, however. For me, it made each line of thought more realistic in its flaws, rather than sugar-coating what often is in such stories.

The Embers is a fantastic little book and a wonderful debut for Hyatt Bass.