Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows JK Rowling 9/10

What can I say about the seventh book in the series? If you're going to read it, you will. The only reason to read the seventh is if you read the first six, and if you read that far you'll continue.

I finished Deathly Hallows in a day - I started just before 9 a.m. and finished a little after 7 p.m. This 10 hour reading spree (well, less. I took a few breaks throughout the day) wasn't because it was the best book I'd ever read...I think I just wanted to read.

It's ironic that, after my criticism of the fantasy genre with Faith of the Fallen, I return in the next post to state how much I enjoy a different fantasy book. Frankly, Deathly Hallows is a fantasy I can enjoy - the plot is not focused on the startling difference of the fantasy world with long descriptions of the environment, it's simply focused on events and characters who happen to be in an alternate world.

The Harry Potter series is not just a book for children, though it's mostly appropriate for them. If you enjoy reading and a good story...well, then, you've probably already read them. If you haven't, what are you waiting for?

Faith of the Fallen

Faith of the Fallen Terry Goodkind 7/10

Faith of the Fallen is the sixth or seventh in a series of fantasy books entitled "The Sword of Truth". I hadn't read any of the preceding books and was thus coming into things a little blindly, but the book was rife with detailed explanations of events that I can only imagine were covered even more specifically in the books where they originally occurred.

To be blunt, Faith of the Fallen is merely a rehash. It's a rehash of Ayn Rand and the Objectivist philosophy, only it's written by a less talented and less knowledgeable writer. I hate to be cruel for fear that Mr. Goodkind will someday stumble upon my blog and be deeply insulted, but I can only be honest. Faith of the Fallen is an obvious attempt to retell the story Rand told in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged in a new scenario. He does a fairly good job, but simply due to subject matter he'll always be compared to Rand, and it's simply not a favorable comparison.

Rand had not only a better understanding of Objectivism, she had a clearer storytelling method and a more believable set of characters and character progression. If you want to read a novel to find out about Objectivism, I would recommend any of Rand's books over Faith of the Fallen unless you had a strong predilection to the fantasy genre.

Faith of the Fallen wasn't just about it's Randian hero and his battle against the quasi-communistic "New World" forces - it had other story elements to appeal to the fantasy enthusiast. Goodkind is a master of his alternate universe, and he is skilled in portraying a believable fantasy world, and then drawing us into accepting it.

All things said, I'm generally not a fan of the fantasy genre. My review has a negative slant for this reason. My understanding is that Goodkind's Sword of Truth series appeals to a wide audience. Choose your reading appropriately.

Disgrace

Disgrace J.M. Coetzee 9.5/10

Disgrace is a masterpiece. The 200 pages are sparsely written, terse and trying. One can hardly muster sympathy for the apathetic and unprincipled protagonist (Lurie) as his distanced, uninvolved life is slowly stripped from him. Disgrace is the story of a man who had almost nothing, and loses that.

Lurie lives a solitary, passionless life as a professor of communications at a Cape Town, South Africa university. "Because he has no respect for the material he teaches, he makes no impression on his students...Their indifference galls him more than he will admit." Lurie merely goes through the motions of life, living without purpose and only moderated joy.

Characters in disgrace are believable and complex - from his lesbian daughter living alone in the countryside to Bev Shaw, the animal lover whose veterinary clinics primary responsibility is the disposal of unwanted animals. The irritatingly indifferent Lurie changes only in miniscule measures - measures unknown and unnoticed by the stalwart professor who repeatedly claims that at his age, it's too late for change, too late for growth.

Lurie loses everything and rebuilds himself in the African countryside, but it's clear that nothing has really changed. Lurie is different now, but the world is the same and the political environment that has brought about the society he's a part of doesn't change simply because we grow. Even his relationships are established - the roles each member plays are established and too firm-set to change. Disgrace is not an uplifting book, but is excellently written and intriguing...and that's what I look for in a book.

Forever Odd

Forever Odd Dean Koontz 6/10

Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas is purportedly his most well-liked creation. Koontz is a popular dog-loving Californian writer with a penchant for mixing the supernatural into his mystery and/or adventure stories (normally with a heartwarming bit of romance).

Forever Odd eschews romance in favor of a stronger emphasis on the supernatural: the protagonist, Odd Thomas, can see ghosts. He can talk to them, but they sadly (and sometimes amusingly) lack the ability to talk back. The majority of the story is a murder mystery where Thomas tries to find the killer who kidnapped his best friend and killed that friend’s father. He relies on his improbably accurate intuition to follow the killer through an intriguing path involving villains even more odd than me.

This is the second book in the series, and a few of the familiar characters return. His old boss (from his days as a fry cook at a local burger joint) and mother figure gives him solid advice, and the tragic yet morbidly amusing ghost of Elvis plays a small part as well. Ozzie, the fat chef and writer, makes an appearance along with his strangely terrifying cat Terrible Chester.

I enjoyed Forever Odd, but I won’t be actively looking to read the other books in the series. I think I read so much Koontz as a teenager that I’m a little too familiar with his writing style. He’s a very prolific writer – I’m sure he has over fifty books, of which I’ve read more than twenty. Perhaps I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I could have because, at the current stage in my life, I’m looking for lessons. I’m looking for purposeful writing with a message. Some find it condescending: like the author takes on a role of moral superiority by ‘lecturing’ us on right and wrong, mature and immature, or good and evil, but lately I’m able to put aside my pride and try to glean whatever wisdom I can from a story. “Forever Odd” was an intriguing, engaging, and funny story. I read it in two days, hardly able to put it down (though that seems to happen with 90% of the books I pick up) until I was finished. Koontz knows how to entertain, and he shows it once again with “Forever Odd”.

The Beginning Place

The Beginning Place Ursula K. LeGuin 7.5/10

I enjoyed this short, simple novel. Somewhere in between fantasy and science fiction, The Beginning Place is a story of growth. It has no pretenses of greatness or extraordinary originality – the tale seems familiar, like I’ve heard it many times before with different variations. What I particular like about this is the type of development that takes place. I’m tempted to call it a “coming of age” story, but I think that title is reserved for youths making their initial forays into young adulthood. The characters that develop in this story are well into their young adulthood – finished with school and living lives that could, potentially, go on forever the way they are going now. The male lead, Hugh, lives with his clingy and overcritical single mother, unhappy but trapped by his love for his mother. The female lead, Irena, is similarly locked in a living situation – she protects her mother and siblings from an abusive father. They’re both waiting for the right situation to begin chasing their own dreams, to begin living their own life.

The majority of the story takes place in a sort of alternate reality – a world separate from ours and accessible only to Hugh and Irena. They both escape to the alternate world for solace and peace from lives they don’t enjoy so much in the real world. Well, I’m not going to give an entire plot summary, but it’s an enjoyable story that’s worth a read if you come across the book.

The Twentieth Wife

The Twentieth Wife Indu Sundaresan 7.5/10

The Twentieth Wife is a bit of historical fiction detailing the life of the woman Mehrunnissa, wife of the influential Indian Emperor Jahangir. Sundaresan has taken known history of the era and woven a believable and enthralling tale of fiction that believably fills in the blanks. I could hardly put the book down once I started it: somehow the mix of realism and guesswork is irrestible inside the 300-some pages of the book.

With all these positive words of praise, how does the book only come out to a rating of 7.5? Well, it's not fair, but I grade the books not by entertainment value but by how they influence my life. This book was a wonderful story and there are lessons to be learned (both moral and historical), but all in all it was put entertainment first. What I got from the story was a history lesson, an Indian culture lesson, and a first-rate tale.

Prep

Prep Curtis Sittenfeld 8/10

Prep is an impressive novel. Much like Catcher in the Rye, it doesn't feel like a work of fiction. It's another book providing insight into the real world, allowing me to remember what those high-school years were like. Sittenfeld is an amazing author in her ability to present situations that beg for some kind of moral judgment with a kind of distinct objectiveness. You want to know what's right, you want to know what is to be learned from a situation, but you're forced to make your own decision.

In a certain way, the novel is depressing in that way. Not because we can't come to our own decisions about what's right, but that the protagonist can't. We're forced to live through years of poor decisions, and as such it becomes a very difficult read. It's so easy, from an older age, to look back at some of the problems and insecurities of youth dismissively...but we get no such satisfaction from our protagonist in Prep. Late into her junior year, one of her classmates attempts to come up with a particularly cutting insult. "Lee," she says, "you haven't changed at all since freshman year." The classmate is correct, and reading Prep puts you through all those years with Lee while you agonize over the poor decisions she makes over and over again.

I don't mean to focus on the poor aspects of the book. I highly recommend Prep if you enjoy books that spur thought, self-evaluation, and remind us of our not-so-perfect past. Just don't expect you'll read it and be cheered right up.

Catcher in the Rye

Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger 9/10

Catcher in the Rye has been reviewed and analyzed much deeper and more effectively than I plan to do in this blog. I haven't read any outside reviews (which is a bit unusual) but I want to talk about what really stood out to me about this book: a brutally believable protagonist. Salinger's "coming of age" story isn't a fable with morals and platitudes...it comes across like life comes across: ordinary. What makes this such an outstanding work of fiction is not that it transports you to another world: instead it seems to shed light on ours.

It's a reminder of what it felt like to be in that in-between stage, where you're not an adult and you're no longer a child. As a matter of fact, I'll probably recommend it to my mom: maybe she'll understand my younger brother a little better after reading it.

Light of Other Days

The Light of Other Days Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter 7/10

Two Critically acclaimed sci-fi authors (Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter) cooperated to write this book. I actually picked it up on accident, intending to read a well-known short story of the same name (about something called slow-glass). I don't regret making the mistake though.

Light of Other Days is an excellent sci-fi book. It's been a while since I last read a purely fictional book, and it was a welcome escape. Well, except for the fairly depressing undertones of the book. The near future (2050, or so) is not quite a dystopia, but it's a depressing place to live. Humanity has come to terms with the fact that a moon sized asteroid is headed towards the earth, due to hit in approximately 500 years. Science sees no foreseeable method of averting what will essentially be the extinction of humanity. The effects on culture as a whole are interesting but not overdramatic - just an increased melancholy with the idea that there's no real need to attempt to progress as a race given the impending extinction.

The title of the book comes from an unrelated scientific development. A purely capitalistic (but somewhat evil) entrepreneur develops a sort of super camera - a device that can look anywhere. To put it simply, he develops a screen that allows for real time surveillance of anywhere on earth. The book is partially about the changes to society that result from what is essentially a complete lack of privacy...political changes (politicians simply can't be corrupt, no one can hide anything) and personal changes.

It's a medium length book, and if you're a fan of the genre I recommend it.

Spoiler (highlight to see)

The book ends on an interesting note. Technological developments from the WormCam (the name of the device that allows you to watch anything) expand to allow us to watch the past (and therefore debunk a number of historical and religious myths). Anyway, the epilogue proposes what I thought to be an interesting idea...if all we humans are is our body, then eternal life is certainly possible. If everything that makes us who we are is physical, then the technology could potentially exist to recreate us exactly as is. The book ends with the main character being woken up some 150 years later, and finds out humanity has started a quest to right it's wrongs...by bringing every human being back to life. Interesting idea.

Utopia

Utopia Thomar More 8/10

Thomas More's Utopia is a well-known work describing a communist utopia. More lived in the Middle Ages (17th century, I believe) and was executed in his thirties for refusing to bless the king's divorce and subsequent remarriage (he was an adviser of some sort for the king). I think knowing a little about More can help one understand the book - More loved humor. He joked about everything, and was even accused by a friend of putting forth everything he said in a joking manner...as a sort of safety net so that he could always retract the statement, saying it was merely made in jest. Utopia itself seems to be an example of this practice - the book seems to purvey itself as serious, but upon closer inspection might just be mocking anyone who could believe in a successful communist society. His Utopia is anything but.

Sophie's World

Sophie's World Jostein Gardner 9/10

A very enjoyable work of fiction intertwined with a very educational review of philosophy, starting with the first known Greek philosophers and ending with more modern theories like existentialism and logical empiricism. I don't know if it's more enjoyable for the fictional part of the story or the thoroughly entertaining non-fiction/educational part.