The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

I don't like war stories.

This one is a metafiction-war-story-type book or at least it feels like it in the first read, but it really isn't.

[MAJOR SPOILER ALERT - I'm going to talk about the ending]

Though in all honesty, the book is a collection of short stories related (more or less) to the Vietnam War so each story can be read relatively episodically...

I felt like the stories created a nice, coherent whole in the sense that they still felt connected. Some other short story collections I read had a disjointed feel so I liked how the stories in this one worked together.

I suppose having to read it for a class helped, too.

Anyway, back the the spoiler.

I think this book is about coping with death - that's why there's the reference to Laura at the end of the novel and that entire last story has nothing to do with Vietnam. Thinking about it now, it kind of reminds me of David Sedaris' book, Holidays on Ice in its similarity with the theme of death, though the theme manifested pretty differently in each book (well, I suppose an argument could be made on its similarity...... but perhaps another time).

This is probably why I liked this book even though it talked about war. War novels (especially contemporary ones) are usually horribly graphic, grotesque, and revealing about the darkness of human nature. It shows what humans are capable of and it isn't pleasant and as I've said before, I don't like depressing novels because the depression in the novel seems to seep out of its pages and contaminates my very being...

But I digress.

This novel did have graphic descriptions of injuries and death but it also showed the various coping mechanisms of the individuals and the seeking of truth behind war and the various mechanisms O'Brien uses were pretty interesting. This is one of those novels you read again and again and find something new and interesting.

Anyway, I'd have to say this novel is a keeper though how much I would pick up this novel for fun is something I haven't yet decided. It's an easy read but it has a lot of depth and I feel like it portrays war pretty well. I'd definitely recommend to others to read (though with less enthusiasm simply because it does talk about war and such things are never pleasant).

Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut

I kept thinking of circles when I read this novel (things he brought up would be brought back in a different form). It kind of reminded me of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe in that sense (though Vonnegut did it in a different way, with a different function).

I don't mean the non-linear storytelling, though that's part of it. I mean that he would bring up random images and they'd come back later - like the blue and ivory feet, the serenity prayer and the pornographic picture of the woman and the horse. Are those triggers for Pilgrim's PTSD? (well, I suppose not the serenity prayer, really).

I don't think I really liked this novel. It's worth a read, obviously and there's a lot to it. If I remember correctly (which sometimes I don't), Vonnegut was the one who tried to make his writing seem effortless even though he spent hours refining his work. I don't mean this in the sense that his work reads almost like a first draft (it flows well and seems to lack depth, though there's a story) - I suppose I mean it in the sense that his writing comes off as kind of simplistic.

However, there's so much and it's funny because I suppose it would read "effortlessly" but I don't think that it was something that seemed un-orchestrated (which is what Vonnegut is trying to go for). It's pretty obvious that he's up to something (I mean c'mon now, blue and ivory? That's so not a coincidence.) but he does make the reader do a lot of the connecting.

His writing has black humor, it's depressing and honestly, it's a pretty bleak outlook on life. However, he's still an interesting and easy read so I suppose I'd give my somewhat better-than-mediocre response to an interested reader.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

This was an enjoyable read.

There isn't really much else to say about it. The stories are episodic, the information Doyle gives are only relevant to help elucidate the unraveling of the case and there are interesting moments of class-play (like status, wealth and a lower-upper class dialectic) but in the end, I felt the book was just a light, simple read.

I read some of Doyle's other works and enjoyed them. Good for other people to read. Understandable as to why it's a classic.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgeral

I can see why this is an American classic. There's considerable more depth than I gave it credit for and there are so many angles that a person can dissect it, I think I could probably read it multiple times and still derive analytical enjoyment from the book.

That said, for personal reading/for my personal tastes, the only reason I wouldn't like this book is because it seems to follow all the typical conventions of American literature (and I'm making an extreme generalization) - subversion of the authority and the pursuit of the American dreams by abandoning tradition. Yes, Fitzgerald shows that this is impossible through Gatsby's multiple failures, but it's still that same theme. I suppose it makes sense because that's what America is all about, but sometimes, I wish that there was more American literature that would deal with other themes. I'm sure there are but of all the canonical works that "define" American literature, it's always about identity (as an American or an [insert ethnic group]-American) or about the subversion of authority because authority never knows what's good for the public. Eh, perhaps I'm being critical because in comparison to other types of literature (e.g. British Literature), the themes of American literature seem limited. Eh. Another argument for another day.

Going back to Gatsby, I liked it because it was a pretty short, easy read. Fitzgerald's writing style is really accessible but its simplicity doesn't take away from its depth. That's the kind of writing that you know is artful - and which is why I understand why it's read in like every other high school.

I'd recommend this book to others but I feel like it's such a typical book that people know of and have read that if anything, it'd be fun to read in a book club to re-examine what was already learned in high school. It doesn't go on my list of favorite books but it's definitely one that I enjoyed.

South of the Border West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

This book was interesting in that it was different from Murakami's typical surrealist writing. There was no other-world manifestation of the mind and there was no implied resolution. This book was imbued with Lacanian (if that's a word) thought. I'm taking a Literary Theory class and we just went through Lacan and I can't help feeling that this book is completely influenced by his theories.

There's this constant sense of incomplete-ness and then there's the comparison between Shimamoto and Izumi - both who influence Hajime in many ways. They seemed to represent both sides of who he was - his better half (so to speak) and his darker side. I suppose a Freudian analysis could be done, but there's this sense that in the end, there is no self -  Hajime doesn't realize or can't realize who he is - he exists but that core of the self doesn't. There can only be some kind of relational way of creating the self and there is only some kind of resolution through his wife, Yukiko.

Anyway, it's all half-baked and I'd have to read it again to really flesh out these thoughts but it was a pretty interesting read, nonetheless.

I do like Murakami's style of writing - this one was less like his typical writing and had more philosophy (or literary theory if you want to make the distinction) embedded in it and I really enjoyed that.

*warning* SPOILER I think that a lot of people wouldn't like this story because there is a sense of incompleteness (which is completely intentional on Murakami's part) but most people don't like stories like that. There seems to be this almost-resolution, but in the end, something in Hajime's self pulls him back.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I'd recommend this book to other people - simply because it doesn't meet typical readers' expectations. I enjoyed it immensely but I always like Murakami's works.

Twelfth Night by Shakespeare

Obviously Shakespeare is awesome.

I thought the play was really good probably because I had to read it for a class and we analyzed it together and that class is awesome x10000.

The cool thing about this play is that it's a comedy and I feel that sometimes comedies explore the human condition with more depth than tragedies or other more serious forms of literature. It can do it and it can make the commentary that it does because it's funny. It's hard to get mad or offended when you're laughing.

The most interesting aspect of this play (for me) was the fact that everyone was wearing a sort of mask. They were playing a part - because they felt that they had to or because that's the role that society cast them. It's like one of those inception type things where they're playing a role in a play and in the role that they're playing, they take on the role of playing a role. Sort of.

Anyway, it's an interesting exploration because if one looks into why Olivia chooses to use the death of her brother and father as a tool to distance herself from men, namely Orsino (Why does she do that? She very clearly isn't in mourning.) and then why Viola, much in the same type of situation (recently lost her brother in a very traumatic shipwreck) takes the situation completely differently, the play suddenly contains that much more depth. Then there's the whole thing with who Viola can tell the truth because she's under the guise of Cesario while everyone else is caught up in intrigue (playing a joke on Malvolio) or other types of lies to buffer their current situation.

It's kind of how in our every day lives, in order to protect ourselves from the consequences of our actions, we veil the truth and in many ways, veil our true selves. We cannot be honest with each other (especially and ironically to the people closest to us) precisely because we don't want to injure others or face the consequences of our honesty. This also goes into an exploration of what it means to have true friends with whom one can be truly be themselves around. This is something that does not happen very often in life. Even if it does, some odd little thing called life happens and suddenly the relationship changes, people move, people change and life moves on.

Then there's the whole thing on love. How the heck does Orsino and Sebastian fall in love so quickly? I mean Orsino's kind of understandable, but Sebastian literally just follows Olivia to the chapel and they're married (without any kind of courting or anything).

So there's an exploration of love that one could do.

There's also the idea of class differences that one could explore, the role of the fool (Feste - interesting guy - made me realize that one must be pretty smart to be funny - and in this case, one must ironically be pretty clever to play the fool), Malvolio's character, Sir Toby's character, etc., etc.

And it's funny to boot. There's the classic misunderstandings because two people look alike, different things happen, the whole situational irony (where the audience and other characters know something that one character does not), and so forth.

As with Shakespeare, I'd hesitate to recommend the play to the average reader simply because Shakespeare isn't an easy read. There were tons of footnotes and little definitions in the version I read (from the Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th edition) and it was a little cumbersome to read (though those notes were very helpful and at times essential to understanding the text). However, knowing the value of Shakespeare, if a person was interested, I would encourage them to read it.

English Restart: Advanced 2 by A. Richards and Christine Gibson

Although this book is tailored towards second language learners, I was recommended this book for its organization and what not.

As a book for English learners, I definitely feel that some of the sentence structures were too hard and some of the ways that the authors tried to simplify some of the concepts caused the sentences and the concepts to seem like they were harder than they actually were. Towards the end of the book, I found that the editing and the focus started to wane a little. However, the conclusion started to coherently wrap things together.

With that said, I think that conceptually, the book was well written and well thought out. The plot meanders in and out of its main point and even the main point is a little fuzzy. It has this philosophical take of "who are we? why are we here?" but sometimes it makes me wonder whether or not it was appropriate for a book whose purpose is to get the reader reacquainted with the English language.

Eh, overall, I wouldn't recommend it to most readers. It does make things interesting for second language learners but I think it gets too hard too quickly and it may discourage, rather than encourage readers. The philosophical aspects of it are interesting, but those points may be lost on an English-language learner because grammar becomes so essential to understanding.