First Reading Challenge Ever . . . FINISHED!!

Hooray!! Despite my literary ADD, I was actually able to finish one of the billion reading challenges I entered! The Decades Reading Challenge was the first one I signed up for when I started my blog, and it is the first one I'm able to say I finished exactly as planned. My original posting and list of reading is here.

I'm so excited! Now on to the others, for there is no rest for the book-addicted. . . :-)

Lezlie

KING SOLOMON'S MINES

by H. Rider Haggard




For those of you, like me, who are eagerly anticipating the return of Indiana Jones to the theatre, King Solomon's Mines is your book! Hero Allan Quartermain is the original Indy, minus the snake phobia and whip. Not so much that Quartermaine is equally as cool as Indiana Jones (after all, that's not possible), but you can see where the idea came from. Much like you can see the seed of the idea for Captain Jack Sparrow in Long John Silver from Treasure Island.

From Amazon.com:

The story begins when renowned safari hunter Allan Quartermain agrees to help Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good search for King Solomon’s legendary cache of diamonds. Eager to find out what is true, what is myth, and what is really buried in the darkness of the mines, the tireless adventurers delve into the Sahara’s treacherous Veil of Sand, where they stumble upon a mysterious lost tribe of African warriors. Finding themselves in deadly peril from that country’s cruel king and the evil sorceress who conspires behind his throne, the explorers escape, but what they seek could be the most savage trap of all—the forbidden, impenetrable, and spectacular King Solomon’s Mines.

I had a blast with this book! It was pure escapism and outrageous fun. Allan Quartermain is the main event, but I became quite fond of his companions in this adventure. And the scenes of the lost tribe standing in awe and worship of Captain Good's white legs when they come across him nearly undressed and half shaved are more than worth the price of admission.

If you haven't had enough when you're done with this one, there is a whole series of books about Allan Quartermain, most of which can be read for free at Project Gutenberg. Here is the list:

King Solomon's Mines (1885)
Allan Quatermain (1887)
Allan's Wife (1887)
Maiwa's Revenge: or, The War of the Little Hand (1888)
Marie (1912)
Child of Storm (1913)
The Holy Flower (1915)
Finished (1917)
The Ivory Child (1916)
The Ancient Allan (1920)
She and Allan (1920)
Heu-heu: or The Monster (1924)
The Treasure of the Lake (1926)
Allan and the Ice-gods (1927)
Hunter Quatermain's Story: The Uncollected Adventures of Allan Quatermain


Happy Reading, Everyone!
Lezlie

Other reviews:

Heather at "Age 30 - A Year of Books"

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

by Jules Verne




While Journey to the Center of the Earth is an interesting book, it really didn't do much for me. I was hoping for a Treasure Island-like adventure tale or even a Jurrasic Park-like science lesson. It may have been one or both of these for some readers, but Axel's incessant whining throughout the entire narration drove me to distraction. And maybe I'm more of a wanna-be anthropologist than geologist. Even so, the story had it's moments and I did find some of the scientific arguments fascinating.

I wish I had a little more interesting insight for you on this one, but, alas, I do not. I see its value, but for me it's one of those that I'm glad I finally got around to, but I'm moving on now. . .

Lezlie

Other books by Jules Verne:

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER

by Mark Twain



If I am not the last person on the face of the earth to read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, I'm betting I'm awfully close. I'm also betting I wouldn't have appreciated it near as much as I did this rainy, depressing week, and I wouldn't have smiled so often or laughed out loud at the antics of Tom and his friends. Nor would I have marveled at the clever descriptive phrases and curious vernacular. Nope. This is the girl who shunned reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn during my junior year in high school while my best friend filled me in on the test questions.

But now? Tom Sawyer will be sitting on the shelf right along side The Wind In The Willows for when I need a quick pick-me-up. Not to mention that now I have to move Huck Finn closer to the top of my TBR pile, because he was my very favorite character! I found Huck especially endearing at the end when his newly aquired "civility" gets to be too much for him:

"Don't talk about it, Tom. I've tried it, and it don't work; it don't work, Tom. It ain't for me; I ain't used to it. The widder's good to me, and friendly; but I can't stand them ways. She makes me get up just at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me all to thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to any air git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can't set down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a cellar-door for -- well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to church and sweat and sweat -- I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly in there, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell -- everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it."

--Huck Finn in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapter XXXV

As someone who fairly regularly fantasizes about pulling up roots, moving to a chunk of land and living "off the grid", there are a lot of thoughts there with which I can empathize. Like Tom, Huck is kind of my dark hero, living a life disdained by others, but free from their constraints. But, again like Tom, I can't quite truly give up the creature comforts I've grown soft on.

But enough about Huck. We'll get to him with his own book. I want to know what happens to Tom going forward. Does he marry Becky Thatcher? Does he become a respectable town citizen? Or would seeing Tom older or as an adult ruin the picture I have of him now? So many questions . . .

Happy Reading!
Lezlie

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

by Oscar Wilde

"What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas. They would mar its beauty, and eat away its grace. They would defile it, and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still live on. It would be always alive."

I thought it would be a bit unnerving to read this book as I pass into the early stages of middle age. I see my hair slowly graying, my skin beginning to loosen ever so slightly. My eyes are not as sharp as they once were and my knees and ankles pop. And I am surrounded by a society that worships youth and beauty. What would I give to the stop the decaying hands of time and stay forever young?

Those were my thoughts as I began the novel. The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of those books that has been in my consciousness for so long that I thought I knew what it was about. How wrong I was! No devil shows up to bargain for Dorian’s soul in exchange for immortality. Dorian’s wish to remain forever young turns out to be merely a passing whim stated out loud then all but forgotten. But something or someone heard, and his eternal youth becomes a beautiful mask to polite society while his originally somewhat naive soul plunges into duplicitous immorality, and the mutating painting becomes a constant reminder of the ugliness beneath the flawless skin.

There is so much going on, so many messages in this book that it is difficult to choose a single aspect to spotlight for a short review. Because most of Dorian’s debaucheries are never explicitly stated, each individual will most likely see a different monster in this tale that is still so relevant today in a society where image seems to be everything. Said Wilde himself, "Each man sees his own sin in Dorian Gray. What Dorian Gray’s sins are, no one knows. He who finds them has brought them."

Lezlie

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

by Kenneth Grahame



If this is not the most adorable book on the planet, it has got to be in the top two or three. It just has to be! Maybe my reading has been too grim and serious lately, but The Wind In The Willows put a smile on my face and a spring in my step. What fun I had speeding with Toad in his motorcar, lazily floating the river with Rat and Mole, and listening to the wise words of Badger. If I had kids, I’d read this to them every night!!

One of my favorite episodes was when Mole and Rat rescue Otter’s lost son. During their adventure, they encounter the god Pan, who gives them the Gift of Forgetfulness. At first I wondered why forgetfulness would be considered a gift. Upon further reflection, I became a believer. When something really awful happens to you, it is the Gift of Forgetfulness, in whole or in part, that allows you to eventually carry on. Mothers forget how painful childbirth was, those who have lost a loved one eventually forget some of the hurt but not the person. We even sometimes forget things that were stunningly wonderful and that allows us to continue to be happy in our ordinarily non-exciting lives. Which, in turn, allows us to re-experience that feeling of great joy when something extraordinary again happens. If we continually dwelt in great ecstasy or great sorrow, the beautiful range of emotions would be lost. The Gift of Forgetfulness is a key to the Gift of Living.

Enough waxing poetic. I’m going to go find Mole and Rat and have an adventure! :-)

Lezlie

SWANN'S WAY by Marcel Proust

This book exhausted me. Don’t get me wrong. I really liked it. But the extravagant style, endless sentences and multi-page paragraphs wrung my brain dry. There are seven books that make up this complete work (In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past) and I have every intention of reading all six volumes in which they are contained, but I will be spacing them out a bit. It’s like a rich dessert. No matter how much I love French Silk Pie, there is only so much I can eat at one time.

Swann’s Way revolves around the narrator’s memories of his childhood. While he knows memory is fallible, he still revels in reliving times of his life suddenly and unexpectedly brought back to him by simple acts such as the tasting of a madeleine dipped in tea or the sight of a church steeple. Among the many amazing quotes in this book, one of my favorites occurs near the end:

[L]arge birds swiftly crossed the Bois, like a real wood, and uttering their sharp cries alighted one after another in the tall oaks which under their druidical crowns and with a Dodonean majesty seemed to proclaim the inhuman emptiness of the disused forest, and helped me better understand what a contradiction it is to search in reality for memory’s pictures, which would never have the charm that comes to them from memory itself and from not being perceived by the senses.

There is an enormous cast of characters introduced and many scenes which seem not to be connected to any of the others, but my understanding is that most of this sets up future volumes. I’m very curious to see where this all goes. In the meantime, I just have to share with you another passage that I adored:

He was smiling, enraptured in a sort of dream, then he hurried back to the lady, and since he was walking more quickly than was his habit, his two shoulders oscillated ridiculously to the right and left, and so entirely did he abandon himself to this, without concern for anything else, that he looked like the inert and mechanical plaything of happiness itself.

How can you not love that writing?? So over the top!

Lezlie

MRS. DALLOWAY by Virginia Woolf

Mrs. Dalloway is one of those books that make me wish I had gone to college, studied literature, and had the intellectual tools to truly analyze what I’m reading. Peter said that my realization that I was missing something was a good start to my personal independent studies. (That’s what I get for being married to a college professor.)

I discovered quite quickly that I had to slow down and read very carefully, that this was not your average story. My understanding is that Mrs. Dalloway is, in a manner of speaking, Virginia Woolf’s response to James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I have not yet read and she apparently hated. (If anyone knows this to be true or not, please set me straight. I’m just repeating what I read somewhere.) Upon reflection, I liked the “stream-of-consciousness” writing style. I was thoroughly confused at first, but once I began taking my time and just let the words flow in their own time and manner, I found myself caught up in the moments of the lives and private, scattered thoughts of the characters. The whole story takes place over the course of a single day and moves seamlessly from character to character as their paths cross during their daily activities. Pasts are revealed during snippets of conversations and meandering personal musings that occasionally became hard for me to follow. However, I was deeply intrigued by the book as a whole. I can’t say I loved it, but as my understanding of literature matures (assuming that it does), Mrs. Dalloway is a book I will come back to.

Lezlie

BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley

I don't know what we did in high school English class. Apparently we didn't read books, because all of the things everyone seems to have read in high school, I missed out on. I say this, because whenever I mentioned to anyone I know that I was reading Brave New World, the response was always, "Didn't you have to read that in high school?" Same for Animal Farm, Catcher In The Rye, Huckleberry Finn, the list goes on. OK, missing Huck Finn was my own fault. I just plain didn't read it when it was assigned. But I remember that *because* we didn't have that many assigned. I must have thought, "We never read anything else. Why should I read this?"

Anyway, I digress. The lack of required reading in my high school English education was not the point of this post.

Brave New World is every bit as disturbing as it was meant to be. I loved the last 50+ pages, when the Controller explains to John, the Savage, the philosophy behind "civilization", where all needs are met with the press of a button or the pop of a pill and desires are carefully controlled via early "conditioning". It's hard to believe this book was written over 70 years ago. (It was published in 1932.) Much of it made me think of today's society and how we think we should have everything we want "right now" with a minimum of effort, how our lives should be geared simply toward overabundance of comfort and convenience in one form or another. Yet even though it appears many people's actions strive only to achieve personal success, comfort, and that elusive state of "happiness", misery and unrest seems more prevalent than ever.

This is one of my favorite quotes from Brave New World. The Controller is explaining to John why the lives of the "civilized" are so devoid of, well, life:

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."

Perhaps "too much" is its own brand of poverty and "enough" is that for which we should seek. Or even a little bit of personal sacrifice.

Here's to enough~
Lezlie

2008 Decades Reading Challenge

OK. I've changed my mind. And anyone who knows me gets pretty used to that in a hurry!

I've decided to plunge in and officially sign up for the Decades Reading Challenge. I don't know why this makes me nervous. It can't be the commitment to read. Making reading lists is pretty much a necessary life function for me. Kind of like breathing. A girl has to have goals, right? :-) It's probably just this newness to the whole blogging world.

So here's the Official List. Books I've finished are in bold.

CHALLENGE COMPLETED!!!
Completed: 8/8 as of May 13, 2008

1860s
Journey To The Center of the Earth
Jules Verne

1870s
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain

1880s
King Solomon's Mines
H. Rider Haggard

1890s
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde

1900s
The Wind In The Willows
Kenneth Grahame

1910s
Swann's Way
Marcel Proust

1920s
Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf

1930s
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley

Most of these are also on the "1001 Books" list also. That will help with my goal of 50 for this year on that project.

Good luck everyone!
Lezlie