I only wished, as I listened, that there was more of it. Only when I was nearly finished listening did I realize it was an abridgement of a longer book. (I hate it when that happens.) Still, there was something doubly wonderful about listening to President Obama narrating himself his hopes for the future of America. I’m not sure I would have loved it as much if I’d read it.

I consider myself neither a Democrat nor a Republican, neither a liberal nor a conservative. Although some of my political thoughts do lean one way or the other, I like to think of myself as a middle of the road citizen of the United States. Many of Barack Obama’s “thoughts on reclaiming the American dream,” resonated with my middle-of-the-road stance.

Listening to Barack Obama’s thoughts on his family and the future was purely delightful. I can’t really think of any other way to say it. While occasionally I’d think to myself “I really am not concerned about the issue he’s talking about” or “I don’t really agree,” for the most part, I enjoyed hearing his thoughts.

I’ve found that audiobooks are rather hard for me to write about, especially when, at less than 7 hours long, I finish it in a week and a half of driving around town. Not many solid details remain with me, but I did enjoy the time I spent listening. I think my favorite parts were the personal stories he shared of visiting with people across Illinois, meeting his wife and what it was like balancing his busy career, her career and their newborn daughters. Since I enjoyed his personal stories so much, I’m tempted to now go listen to his other book, his memoir of growing up.

If I’d been on the ball, I’d have written about this audiobook for Audiobook week as hosted by Devourer of Books. Or, I’d have had it posted this last weekend in time to suggest it’s a U.S. Independence Day post! As it is, I enjoyed it and would recommend it, albeit with the knowledge that the audiobook is unfortunately abridged.

What audiobook have you listened to lately?

• The John Cheever Audio Collection
• Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
• Abandoned Book: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• What is Reading? and Audiobook Review of The Book Thief
• The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts
• Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
• Ongoing and Personal Challenges – 2009
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I never intended that my first post for My Victorian Summer would come a full month after the inauguration of my project, but I’ve found that with summer weather, long books, and family in town, my blogging is becoming less of a priority than before. To my surprise, I’m okay with this. I may continue to leave things rather “hands off” for the next little while. Maybe I’ll get back into a blogging groove at some point, but for now, I’m living my life.

The two Victorian-esque books I have finished this month are completely different.

We Two: Victoria and Albert, Rulers, Partners, and Rivals by Gillian Gill is a non-fiction biography of the monarch and her husband. It was not, of course, written during the Victorian era, but I read it to get a sense of what made the Victorian Era a distinct era. I found the biography quite fascinating, even if the relationship between Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert was not quite as satisfyingly romantic as Hollywood made out in The Young Victoria.

Armadale by Wilkie Collins, on the other hand, was a fantastic sensation novel from the 1860s, complete with dual and mistaken identities, poison, attempted murder, and above all superstition. While the almost-700-page novel seemed a little slow to begin, the convoluted plots and depth of characters made it a satisfying and delicious book to devour.

I also share my current Reading Journal below.

We Two by Gillian Gill

I loved watching The Young Victoria, a recent Hollywood portrayal of Queen Victoria’s courtship and early marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. That movie prompted me to go on my “Victorian Summer” reading frenzy. Reading the true story of the couple’s life together was a bit disappointing after Hollywood, simply because theirs was rather a non-romantic and more practical relationship. We Two: Victoria and Albert, Rulers, Partners, and Rivals by Gillian Gill provided a biography of both Victoria and Albert’s youth and then a biography of their life together until Albert’s premature death at age 42 of typhoid fever.

Princess Victoria of Kent was just a few months past eighteen when her Uncle passed away, leaving her Queen of England. Her first eighteen years of life were sheltered by her overbearing mother and her mother’s power-hungry associate Sir John Conroy in Kensington Castle. So upon receiving sovereign authority, she was determined to rule her way. She did not want to marry. She wanted to make a difference for her nation, which she loved.

For the first three years of her reign, she worked closely with Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, making mistakes but really putting her all in to her work. Yet, after a few years at court, she found that she longed for male companionship; her cousin, Prince Albert, had been groomed since childhood to be her husband, and so she consented to the marriage. It is evident that the two were quite fond of each other and certainly in love, but theirs was a convenient marriage: neither really seemed to have much choice about who they married.

Reading of Victoria’s and Albert’s life was somewhat of a tutorial in gender and family politics in England in the 1800s. The fact that Victoria was a married female altered her ability to rule England in part because of the Albert’s view of women; Albert was the one who made a political difference for much of their married life.

Had Queen Victoria not been quite so fertile (or as Gill points out, had they had any type of understanding of natural birth control), she may have dominated the political scene. She was prepared to lead and be a dominating force. As it was, she had pregnancy after pregnancy for the first two decades of her reign, left physically exhausted by the wear on her body. Also, Prince Albert was raised in a misogynistic environment and therefore seems to have stifled Victoria’s abilities somewhat.

Prince Albert, although not legally a monarch of England, was therefore the behind-the-scenes leader of England. So many of the things that seem definitively “Victorian” are really “Albertian.” His upbringing had been to prepare him to be consort to the isolated and virginal Princess Victoria, and since his family was known for their debauchery, he had been the family exception, raised to conform to a different morality than his brother and uncles. His arrival in the English court may have been what prompted the Victorian morality that we now think of. Further, Albert’s influence on the “Great Exhibition” is also an example of how he influenced England to think ahead. He was fascinated by developing technology, he had an interest in social innovation, and he was well trained in political discourse. He was, like Victoria, a born leader.

Gillian Gill’s biography of the two focused on their relationship, and the book was well researched and engagingly written. It was only a bit disappointing to read the truth, especially of how dominating Prince Albert was. (For example, it was Queen Victoria who always begged forgiveness when there was a disagreement between the two; in their relationship, Prince Albert expected her to see her place as a woman, which was of course below himself.) When their marriage came to an end with Albert’s early death, it was Queen Victoria who had succumbed to Albert’s position on women: no longer was she the strong teenaged queen, eager to make a difference in the world and unexcited about being tied down. When Albert died, she was the dutiful wife who proclaimed the goodness of her dead husband. Despite the fact that she was the sovereign ruler of England, Queen Victoria was also a wife as trapped in the familial duties just as many other women in Victorian England. She did have nannies and fine medical care, but she was still trapped in her role, with a domineering man at her head.

I’m glad I read about Albert and Victoria, even though it was rather disappointing to me. As I read the novels from the era, I think it may help to remember the influence of the queen and her consort. Since I love history, it was also fascinating to see how the family fit in to the international political picture.

I should note that Gill does not come to the same conclusions that I’ve mentioned above in so many words; that’s what I got from their story. At just under 400 pages (plus notes), We Two is not a comprehensive account, and much is left unsaid. Yet, if you are interested in reading the story of Queen Victoria and her husband, We Two is great place to start.

Armadale by Wilkie Collins

And then we go to fiction.

Oh, Wilkie Collins. I love you so much! The Woman in White was delightful and may have been better written than Armadale (a reread is in order to determine if that is so). The Moonstone, as a mystery, was well developed but simply okay for me, a non-mystery person. But Armadale just topped them both in terms of suspense and emotional attachment. No one beats Lydia Gwilt as a complicated villain.

Twenty years ago, two boys named Allan Armadale vied for the attentions of a young woman. Now (in 1851), their two orphaned sons – each also called Allan Armadale – cross paths. The mysterious money-hungry redhead Miss Lydia Gwilt shows up and things get a little bit crazy.

Like the other Wilkie Collins novels I’ve read, Armadale dealt with the question of identity: people had multiple identities and multiple names. It also dealt with generational identity as the Allan Armadale that form the bulk of the action are the children of men of the same name. Armadale seemed to ask questions: Are these young men destined to be their father’s sons? Are they, by nature, destined to similar wrong choices, for example? Collins also drew heavily on superstition because the story keeps circling back to Allan Armadale’s mysterious dream. Do these characters have choices or are events destined?

Another theme that seemed central was the one I most enjoyed, the question of good and evil. The first two hundred pages of this chunkster seemed a bit slow, but once Lydia Gwilt began to interact with the men at Thorpe Ambrose, I did not want to put it down. Miss Gwilt is a villain through and through, but I couldn’t help feel sorry for her. Wilkie Collins doesn’t quite excuse her actions but as we progressively learn more about her, the story truly becomes hers and we see a bit of where she is coming from. I liked her, ridiculous and bad as she was even on good days. I absolutely loved how Collins created her character, for she makes this story the fascinating page-turner that it is. She was captivating in a way no one else in the novel was. Collins gave us pages of her journal (progressively more throughout the book) so we’d see just what she was thinking and how she was developing. Though the book is called Armadale, I believe that Miss Gwilt is the main character within it.

Collins puts in plenty of excitement (poison, attempted murder, coincidence, and a lunatic asylum), yet it is utterly convincing and real. I feel I have barely touched on the main points and the depth that is in Armadale. Believe me when I say it is a fun ride.

For more insights into the novel, see Shelf Love, Bibliolatry, Novel Insights, Becky’s Book Reviews, and Savidge Reads.

Reading Journal (30 June)

I’m trying to let go of schedules a little bit more and just read what I want. I have so many Victorian reads on my radar I could just read Victorian for the rest of the year!

Recently Finished: The Audacity of Hope (audiobook, abridged) by Barack Obama

Recently Abandoned (for now): The Inferno by Dante, Hollander translation (I may have a post about this abandonment)

In Progress: Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (for My Victorian Summer); Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (audiobook, for My Victorian Summer); Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang (for Orbis Terrarum/Asia); Nineteenth-Century Russian Reader (for Imperial Russia Classics Circuit); I Am A Cat by Natsume Soseki (my personal JLit Challenge); Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose (for my other book club)

On Deck: The Art of Victorian Fiction (essays for My Victorian Summer); Great Expectations (for My Victorian Summer); The Stranger and The Plague by Camus (the former for my Classics Reading Group); The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee (for the Spotlight Series); whatever other books as please my fancy.

• Introducing: My Victorian Summer
• The Life of Wilkie Collins (Biographies by Clarke and Peters)
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
• Victorian Second Helpings (The Moonstone by Collins and North and South by Gaskell)
• May and Milton in May in Review + Challenges Update and Reading Journal
• Reading Journal (16 December): A Classics Circuit TBR List from Wilkie Collins to Harlem
• Reading Journal (21 Oct): Victorian Second Helpings + Giveaway of an Abandoned Book
• Reading Journal (18 Nov): Planning for a Quiet December
• November in Review + Reading Journal (2 Dec)
• Reading Journal (29 July): Summer Mode to Blog Reading

Jerusalem: The Eternal City, then, has a very specific audience. It is not a universal book about Jerusalem, and its limited audience does give the book some flaws. When I read this book ten years ago, prior to my own experience in Jerusalem, I was in love with everything to do with the city and its history, and this book got me more than a little excited to walk the streets of Jerusalem myself. Despite the flaws, I still enjoyed rereading Jerusalem: The Eternal City, and it reminded me of my time there.

Some of the flaws might be considered strengths. The ancient sections about the city rely almost exclusively on Biblical histories, and for those who want a scriptural overview of Jerusalem’s history, Jerusalem: The Eternal City amply provides that. The sections on modern political situations and possible solutions, while very interesting and seemingly balanced, did seem immature from my own immature political perspective. Of course, because the book is now 15 years old, such political perspectives may simply outdated. Each of the later chapters focused on a different part of recent history (political, religious, etc.) and were therefore repetitive about some historic events.

Finally, as a religious person myself, I did enjoy the religious perspectives of the book, but found myself hoping for more anthropological and archeological history in addition to the religious details. I think anyone approaching this book needs to understand that it’s a religious history and discussion before anything else. It’s not meant to balanced.

For me, the most interesting sections were those on Jerusalem at the Meridian of time (how the city was during the life of Christ) and the subsequent history of Jerusalem during the nearly two millennia that followed. (It started feeling repetitive during the discussions of the 1800s and after.) It was fascinating to see how three different dominant religions found the land and that specific city central to their faith. The later chapters, about possible religious futures for the city were, from a religious perspective, very interesting, and I liked reading the collection of scriptures about the city, all in one place.

Finally, because I had the opportunity to stay in the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, I was fascinated to read how such a center came about. I also have a separate book about the Center (Grafting In: A History of the Latter-day Saints in the Holy Land by Steven W. Baldridge), and I liked how Jerusalem: The Eternal City had the Center’s history condensed into one chapter. What I enjoyed about this history is how the Center was built into the land, and that the entire purpose to the center is historical and religious education (for college-aged American Christians) and unification of people and personality. It is right on the border between the West Bank and the city of Jerusalem, and when I lived there, the Center employed both Arabs and Jews, as well as Christians, a highly unusual arrangement. I am not sure that my 19-year-old self realized how unusual it was to have Arabs and Jews working side by side in the cafeteria in a West Bank educational center.

Since I read Jerusalem: The Eternal City as a reminder of my six to eight weeks living in Jerusalem (we also spent some time in Galilee, Jordan, and Egypt, although Jerusalem was our base), I think it might be appropriate to share some of my photos of the most beautiful city on earth. (A rabbi said that whoever has not seen Jerusalem in all its splendor has never seen a beautiful city in his life, quoted on page 2).

I used a dozen rolls of film when I was there. In retrospect I wish it had been the age of digital photography, since then I’d have taken more than twice as many photographs!

(Note: Click on a picture to see it larger. I scanned these pictures from the prints I have; they are out a bit fuzzy and somewhat out of focus. I was not a photographer and my camera was not an impressive one.)

The Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies (where I lived for 8 weeks). Hebrew University can be seen in the background.

The Western Wall

My study abroad group at the Dome of the Rock (I am in the second row for the bottom, sixth from the left)

View of the City of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

Golgotha in two different seasons (the top is June when I left the area, the bottom is from April when I first arrived)

The Garden Tomb (my favorite retreat)

Me at the Garden Tomb

I read Jerusalem: The Eternal City in May and the first half of June as my project book.

• Palestine by Joe Sacco
• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman + Giveaway (Used Book)
• Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
• Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston
• Love in a Fallen City and Other Stories by Eileen Chang
• Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle
• Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
• Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg
• Nineteenth-Century Mormon Architecture and City Planning by C. Mark Hamilton
• The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

In the case of Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, Guy Delisle’s perspective may be one of the few such memoirs of a visit to North Korea. Although I knew that North Korea was a communist nation, the facts that Delisle shares of his two months working there are quite astonishing. It’s hard to believe that such a dystopian country exists contemporary to my own. For the less ignorant, Pyongyang won’t be a shock. Regardless, the comic reads like a novel, and I’m glad for the glimpse into a world I didn’t quite know existed as such.

I wondered a little bit, as I read, if Delisle had this book in mind when he began his trip. The novel he decides to bring with him is George Orwell’s 1984, and he seems to seek out edgy things to say and do. Yet, maybe it was hard not to. Pyongyang the city had no entertainment and as a new visitor, I’m sure I’d likewise be clueless. Before reading this, I didn’t realize that Orwell’s 1984 was a reality in a nation on the earth.

The similarities between 1984 and the North Korean world Delisle portrays are striking. Here are just a few things that seemed right out of Orwell:

• Pictures of Big Brother on the walls (i.e., Kim and Kim Jr.).
• “Volunteers” cutting the grass with a sickle.
• Restaurants named with numbers.
• A classroom of cookie cutter children playing the accordion perfectly (as depicted on the cover).
• The lack of entertainment.
• The lack of contact with the rest of the world.
• The sense of country-worship Delisle’s guides obviously express.
• The lack of any disabled people.
• The fact that everyone informs on everyone else as “spies.”

It was rather scary and certainly uncomfortable.  This is today. This is not a dystopian novel!

Although the political situation was uncomfortable, the graphic novel as a whole was actually quite funny. Delisle was bored, so he found things to do. And he had some great discussions with his guide and his translator. I loved the scene where he asked his translator what he thought of the novel he’d lent him (1984). Oh my, did that man hurry to return the novel. “I don’t like science fiction!” he exclaimed, sweating profusely. I do wonder, though, if North Korean authorities are going to find that man and make him pay for that simple appearance in this novel (similar to the aftermath of newspaper photos of Tiannaman Square). It worried me.

In the end, it was a great read. I learned about the world but I also was entertained. I enjoyed the artwork too. It helped me see this world that seems to foreign from my own.

• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell
• Victorian Second Helpings (The Moonstone by Collins and North and South by Gaskell)
• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
• Daughter of Destiny by Benazir Bhutto
• Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
• Speeches of Winston Churchill
• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Jerusalem: The Eternal City by David Galbraith et al

And so, I come to the end of Paradise Lost. If you’re still reading it, feel free to leave your thoughts whenever you do finish it. There is no time limit to this project: read at your own pace and join in when you’ve finished.

For myself, I don’t think I “understood” it any better than I did the first time I read it seven years ago. That time, I was discussing it in a classroom. This time, I read it for enjoyment. We have been discussing it online, and I’ve been trying to further discussion through relevant questions and my own comments. I’ve come to a little bit of a discovery, though: everyone reads things in such a unique way that it’s very difficult to create relevant questions and it’s difficult to answer questions about something so huge as Milton’s Paradise Lost, even if you’re the one creating the questions to begin with. I think I need to read it a few more times in my life in order to better “discuss” it in any format.

This post, then, is a bit different. I leave us all with a series of related questions. My thoughts follow the jump.

• What was Paradise Lost about from your perspective? What did it mean to you as you read it?
• Milton says in the beginning that he wrote it to “justify the ways of God to men” (I.26). Did he succeed?
• In the end, what did you take away from Milton’s epic?

My Thoughts: Books 10-12 and The Entirety of Paradise Lost

I liked Book 10 but the last books kind of dropped off. I liked them, but they weren’t as majestic as the first few books, those with Satan. Was this intentional? In the commentary I read by C.S. Lewis, he suggested Milton got tired and hurried to an end, which I think is a bit silly to say. I would have to reread it myself to get the full effect. I think I got tired and wanted it to end.

For me, Paradise Lost was about obedience, choice, and consequence. Everything in the poem seems to revolve around laws and the consequences for disobeying them, as well as the wonderful example of human autonomy. First Satan, and then Eve and Adam made choices. Satan’s choice (rebelling against God) caused him to be cast out of heaven; Eve and Adam’s choice required that they leave paradise.

According to Merriam-Webster, “justify” means, in part, “to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable b (1) : to show to have had a sufficient legal reason.” Did Milton “justify” God’s plan in Paradise Lost? I think he did, but that’s because so much of what Milton suggests resonates with my own Christian beliefs. My read was a personal one.

In the Norton Critical Edition, there is commentary by Scott Elledge following the text of Paradise Lost. He says a number of things that I found useful in putting my thoughts together, so I share them here.

The consequence of eating was knowledge of a certain kind – knowledge that good could be gained only by knowing evil. … Milton recognized in perfect Adam a thirst for knowledge that is best understood as a passion for contemplating God’s works for the right purpose – that of knowing God and glorifying him. (page 470)

The poem does not convince us that Adam should be glad he fell – only that Christians maybe glad that the consequences were so good for mankind. The final justification of God’s ways is the manifestation of his grace in the redemption of man through the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ. (page 471)

My person beliefs about the fall are that it was not a sin but a transgression, and that all “will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam’s transgression” (Article of Faith 2). That is not what Milton is saying: he follows traditional Christianity’s look at the Fall as the first sin of man. For me, though, Milton’s portrayal of God’s attitude toward Adam and Eve’s taking the fruit was similar enough that it resonated to me.

To explain: Milton’s God was not a vengeful God out to punish, but a God of laws and consequence that had the foresight to provide a second-chance plan (the Son of God) once he realized that Satan’s temptation would cause the two humans to fall. See God’s observations III, 80-134. (“I made him just and right, / Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.” III, 98-99.) The Son of God’s response is at III.227-264. (“Behold me then, me for him, life for life/ I offer.” III, 236-237.) This discussion occurs before Eve and Adam take the fruit, and Satan has not yet conversed with them. I certainly thought Milton gave justification to God’s ways.

At any rate, whether or not Milton succeeded in echoing my own understandings or in justifying God’s ways, what I got out of Paradise Lost overall is a sense of overwhelming need to reread complicated things. I didn’t reread this since I sat down to write these thoughts, and my first read was so long ago (seven years maybe?) that it seems a vague memory. I feel like I need to reread Paradise Lost a number of times in order to properly respond to it. And I suspect I’ll read it again. It could bear rereading every few years.

In addition to skimming some of the Norton Critical Edition end matter, I also read a few others books this month as I read Milton.

John Milton by Neil Forsyth

Neil Forsyth admits that his work is not a definitive biography. It is, after all, less than 250 pages. In his introduction to John Milton: A Biography, Forsyth writes:

I have tried to transmit to as wide a readership as possible the result of the scholarly researches of others, along with some of my own opinions. My task, as I saw it, was to write a biography of Milton that would excite readers who might merely be curious. (page 7)

I found this biography to be perfect for my needs. If anything, it lacked details on Milton’s personal life, but given the fact that this was 400 years ago, I suspect such things are hard to prove. As it was, it gave a great overview of Milton’s life, with his works placed in to a historical context. Since much of what Milton wrote was political and I am not familiar with his era, this was very helpful for me. I highly recommend this biography if, as he writes in the introduction, you are curious about Milton the man and his era.

A Preface to Paradise Lost by C.S. Lewis

Just as the biography of Milton gave Milton’s politics context, C.S. Lewis’ Preface gave context to Milton’s format (the epic) and religion (Christianity). Although I am Christian, Milton’s and Lewis’ Christianity follow different precepts, so I appreciated the background. That said, while I enjoyed Lewis’ commentary overall, I found it incredibly dry. I read about 120 of the 140 pages, skipping some parts of more boring chapters. There were quotes I enjoyed as I read that helped me put Paradise Lost into context, but I neglected to mark them and can no longer remember them.

The most interesting parts were C.S. Lewis’ opinion chapters on the specific characters in Paradise Lost. He is very emphatic on the fact that Satan is not a hero in this text. Satan was, I would say, the most interesting character, but I’d have to agree with Lewis on most points that he was not the one we’d like to spend any time with. He was a bit too selfish to be pleasant. At any rate, Lewis’ literary criticism is not what I’d recommend reading if you want commentary. He put some things into context, but it was a slog to get through.

• Milton in May Week 1: Introduction and Paradise Lost Books 1-3
• Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 4-6
• Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 7-9
• Milton in May: Paradise Regained
• Milton in May: Areopagitica and Adam and Eve’s Choice in Paradise Lost
• Milton in May: A Paradise Lost Read-Along
• Any Interest in a May Read-Along of Paradise Lost?
• Milton in May: Thoughts on Some Early Milton Poems
• Milton in May: Comus and Lycidas by John Milton
• May and Milton in May in Review + Challenges Update and Reading Journal

I took a creative writing class in tenth grade. While I can’t say any of my output was remarkable, the best aspects of the class were the samples my teacher gave us of good quality stories and poetry. I hadn’t yet learned to appreciate poetry (it took two more years before that happened), yet I have always remembered one poem we read in class. I decided to go and find it.

The collected volume of Nikki Giovanni’s poetry was more than I anticipated reading. The volume has more than 350 pages of poetry and extensive endnotes (another 100 pages). As I mentioned the other day, I read poetry for feeling, sound, and enjoyment factor. As it was, I only skimmed about half of the poems and I ignored the notes. I would read a poem in full if something about it caught my attention.

The memorable poem my teacher gave 15-year-old me was “I Wrote a Good Omelet,” a love poem. I had not, at that point, fallen in love (although I may have thought I had), yet there was something universal about the mixed-up distraction the narrator in the poem expressed. I could relate to that distraction, and as a romantic teen, I longed to experience such distracted “floating.” I wanted to fall in love like this. An excerpt:

I goed on red . . . and stopped on green . . . floating
… somewhere in between . . .
being here and being there  . . .
after loving you

The poem is worth reading in its entirety. It’s a great example of Givanni’s love poetry. Other love poems I enjoyed were “The Butterfly,” “Kidnap Poem,” and “Poetry is a Trestle,” which is a poet’s look at what poetry is and what it does. Giovanni compares poetry to love:

and I believe
the most beautiful poem
ever heard is your heart
racing.

I also particularly enjoyed the anti-love poem “Housecleaning,” made a parallel between housecleaning habits and her need to clean her life by eliminating the bad habit love relationship: “[…] i find/ i must remove you/ from my life.”

Giovanni wrote far more than love poetry, however, and having the whole of her poetry in one volume gave her life context. “Knoxville, Tennessee” captures some memories of her childhood, and “[Untitled],” which begins “there is a hunger,” records the pain of love ending and the real world stepping in:

because the real world
[…]
says you are a strong woman
… and anyway he never thought you’d really miss him

“Poetry” tries to capture her need to write poetry, and the loneliness that comes from being a poet. An excerpt:

a poem is pure energy
horizontally contained
between the mind
of the poet and the ear of the reader
if it does not sing discard the ear

And after discussing all those poems that I enjoyed so much, I still haven’t touched on just what Nikki Giovanni’s poetry is, for she is firstly an African-American poet who came of age during the Civil Rights era. So many of her poems illustrate the frustrations of being a black woman in America, and others, as time passes, celebrate it. She was “born in the congo,” she says, “I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal/ I cannot be comprehended except by my permission” (“Ego Tripping”).

Giovanni’s first volume of poetry, which she self-published in 1968, is called Black Feeling Black Talk. In the context of the civil rights, she writes with anger and bitterness. I didn’t refer to the notes, and because I am not an expert in the era, many of the social and political events her poems capture were not familiar to me. But I loved seeing how her poetry evolved. In her third volume of poetry, Re: Creation, Giovanni’s “Revolutionary Dreams” seemed to illustrate the change in her poetic focus.

then i awoke and dug
that if i dreamed natural
dreams of being a natural
woman doing what a woman
does when she’s natural
i would have a revolution

No longer were the bulk of her poems about the black revolutionary politics, but they shifted to her love poems, poems about her son and about being a single mother in 1970s America, and poems about what it means to be a part of a world (“Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day”). The later poems are less political and more personal, which is what I prefer and what I loved. They also seemed mature in style.  I can’t say why they seemed more mature in poetic style since I’m really not an expert in reading poetry. I will say that I think Giovanni just kept getting better and better. Since she’s published two more volumes of poetry since 1998, I definitely have more Giovanni I need to read!

I say I like poetry, but I honestly haven’t read very much. Now, I also keep picking up poets I’ve already read and found that I like.  Nikki Giovanni was one of them, and I’m glad I happened to pick up her volume of collected poetry. I hadn’t intended to read it all, but I really enjoyed seeing her poetry in context from volume to volume.

Giovanni is an American poet that really should be studied:  there is so much there and it is so enjoyable. She certainly has written a lot of good omelets.

• How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch
• Babylon in a Jar: New Poems by Andrew Hudgins
• Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg
• Poetry Friday: Christmas Poems
• Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
• A Poem in Your Pocket: Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins
• A Selection of Poetry by John Donne
• The Door by Margaret Atwood
• Poetry for Young People: William Shakespeare
• Poetry for Young People: Lewis Carroll

I found Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped less engaging and loveable, but still an interesting story of success. A boy is kidnapped by his uncle and sent toward the Americas. Due to his cleverness, he is shipwrecked in Scotland, but things go wrong and he becomes a political outcast as he flees south with a political refugee. While I struggled as I read it, I still enjoyed it.

Treasure Island’s charm lay in the power of the child. While Jim Hawkins was probably an older boy (age 16 or 17), I still felt he was a “boy” as I read and I think older kids would love relating to his adventures. From the beginning, Jim is the one discovering things and When a pirate dies in his family hotel, Jim finds a map with a treasure marked on it. With some help from a wealthy neighbor, they plan their trip to the island. There are a number of coincidences, of course, but one can’t help fall in love with Long John Silver, the one-legged cook who we are not surprised to find is actually a pirate. (I was so pleased to see how good he really was!)

I picked up Treasure Island as a part of my history of children’s literature project. Treasure Island is a part of the Robinson Crusoe legacy, and it is clear how it is. As Seth Lerer points out in his book Children’s Literature, when Jim Hawkins comes across Ben Gunn on the island,

“It is as if the boy had come upon Crusoe himself, marooned on his island and attired in the tatters of his former life.” (page 142).

Since I loved Robinson Crusoe, I also loved finding these parallels. While Jim Hawkins didn’t go through a religious transformation as Crusoe did, he did go through his own rites of passage to become an adult: surely, all his actions proved him worthy of being called a “man.”

While Stevenson’s other children’s novel does not hearken as clearly back to the Crusoe legacy (and wasn’t mentioned in the Children’s Literature book, I don’t think), it still captures some of the magic of the sea-faring life that must have been every young child’s dream. Of course, David’s sea experiences are horrible, and the testament to the abuse may have cured children of the dream of going to see. Did Crusoe’s ship-wreck likewise make sea-life less attractive?

For me, Kidnapped lacked some of the “child power” that I enjoyed in the first novel. While David Balfour was obviously a smart boy, he relied on others, such as Alan Breck, for much of the novel. If Alan had not appeared on his ship, David would not have been able to wreck the ship. Without Alan’s leadership, money, friendship, and guidance, David would not have made it back to England. I enjoyed the premise of the story, but since I’m so unfamiliar with English and Scottish history, I found myself confused during the political discussions. (My ignorance prompted my current Project Book.) I did not understand the “refugee” status the two had, and so I felt I missed a major element of the novel.

In the end, of the two, I absolutely loved Treasure Island. I bought a lovely copy for my 8-year-old nephew for Christmas, and I can’t wait to get a lovely copy for my own son too. Maybe 8 years old is a bit young, but I’m all for promoting the classics no matter what age. (Hence the fact that I read my one-year-old Robinson Crusoe last year…)

Have you read either of these books as a child? How old were you?

What did you like most about them?

P.S. Don’t you love the cover for Treasure Island above? It reminds me of my time visiting the Twelve Apostles in Australia!

• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• Poetry for Young People: Robert Louis Stevenson (edited by Frances Schoonmaker)
• Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
• The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter
• Robinson Crusoe Adaptations for Children
• Two Books by Seth Lerer (Inventing English and Children’s Literature)
• January in Review: A Good Start to 2010
• Death in Children’s Literature: Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
• Pat the Bunny and Other Interactive Books for Kids
• Reading Journal (June 10): Book Clubs

Of course, the two Swift works are different genres, so comparing them is probably not fair: it’s like comparing apples to zucchini. “A Modest Proposal” is an essay, and Gulliver’s Travels is a full-length novel. “A Modest Proposal” was, I believe, written in response to a certain political situation and thus was intentionally political. Gulliver’s Travels is primarily a story, and thus is a more universal criticism of human nature. Yet, even the word “criticism” seems wrong when I consider this novel: Lemuel Gulliver’s cynicism is amusing and yet still highly relevant. It was neither an easy nor a challenging read, and it’s surprisingly accessible tone, amusing anecdotes, and pertinent commentary made it a completely satisfying read.

Gulliver’s Travels was a strange kind of funny to me. I laughed out loud on occasion, and when I finished the last page, I turned it over and read the first few pages again, just because the tone finally made sense: I finally understood what Jonathon Swift’s point was. In some respects, I’d like to reread the novel, now that I comprehend a little bit what the ultimate commentary is.

I realized that these subtle jokes made it a politically charged novel, but it did not feel like a political book as I read it. Rather, Swift tells the story of Lemuel Gulliver’s four voyages around the world. On each voyage, he ends up alone in a remote land, where he meets the local people. There are strange aspects about the humor of this book: while visiting each country, Gulliver seems compelled to mention everything from excrement to the relationships between men and woman to their various living habits. The novel comes across as rather crass, and that adds, I believe, to the illustration of satire of humanity in general.

I’d heard of Lilliput before, and I found Gulliver’s observations of the six-inch high people to be just as ridiculous as would be expected. His descriptions of every-day life (in this country as in the others) compared Lilliputian habits to those of countries he’s familiar with, including his observations of things as insignificant as their writing:

Their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the left to the right, like the Europeans, nor from the right to the left, like the Arabians, nor from up to down, like the Chinese, but aslant, from one corner of the paper to the other, like ladies in England. (page 60)

Further, by observing the pride of the little people, Gulliver illustrates the ridiculousness of pride in might. Because Gulliver literally towers over them, he is asked to stand as a colossus while the proud Lilliputian army marches between his legs (page 40). Gulliver subsequently wins a battle with a neighboring kingdom by walking across a stream and “capturing” the other miniature army, showing how insignificant the “mighty” armies of the little people really were. And despite the Lilliputian taboo of voiding near the palace, he puts out a deadly palace fire with his urine, thus saving the kingdom. And yet, of course, this act is subsequently shunned and Gulliver is ultimately banished from the kingdom.

In Brobdingnag, Gulliver is the miniature-sized person in a land of giants, deeply offending the peaceful giants by offering them the great “gift” of gun powder (page 155-157). The thirty-foot tall dwarf is his only adversary in a land of 60-foot tall humans, as Gulliver finds himself pampered and taught about better government.

In the flying-island land of Laputa, Gulliver found himself a bit bewildered by the intellectually “advanced” Laputans, with a number of scholars researching important new techniques:

[The scholar] was, by a certain composition of gums, minerals, and vegetables, outwardly applied, to prevent the growth of wool upon two young lambs; and he hoped, in a reasonable time to propagate the breed of naked sheep, all over the kingdom. (page 216-217)

And his observation of the women was likewise amusing, since they were not given an education and therefore were the only ones in the nation not distracted by insignificant inventions. Ironically, then, they were therefore the most intelligent in the country.

Ultimately, I, like Gulliver, found the last land of Gulliver’s travels to be the most fascinating. The human-like Yahoos are frightening creatures, and Gulliver finds comfort from the horse-like Houyhnhmns, which teach him much about humanity.

I hesitate to comment further on Swift’s ultimate commentary, especially for that last land, for I fear I missed most of it myself and explaining any more would spoil some of the joke of the novel. In the beginning, I intended to refer to literary criticism to help me make sense of the book, but in the end, I decided that the story and cultural jokes that I did understand were sufficient for me to say without hesitation that I’m glad I read this book. I read about 100 pages a week over the course of three or four weeks.

As one point, in the country of Laputa, Gulliver discusses the history of problems in Europe with a scholar, but then he clarifies for the reader of his adventures:

…however [I did so] without grating upon present times, because I would be sure to give no offense even to foreigners (for I hope the reader need not be told that I do not in the least intend my own country)… (page 237)

I love that little ironic reminder from Swift that yes, actually, he’s talking about his own England.

He also clarifies to the reader that he did not declare the lands he “discovered” for the crown of England, and he gives his reasons. This comes at the end of the book, and could be a spoiler, but I love this quote, because it puts the book into perspective, so highlight it if you’d like to read it and be “spoiled.”

I confess, it was whispered to me, “that I was bound in duty, as a subject of England, to have given in a memorial to a secretary of state at my first coming over; because, whatever lands are discovered by a subject belong to the crown.”  But I doubt whether our conquests in the countries I treat of would be as easy as those of Ferdinando Cortez over the naked Americans.  The Lilliputians, I think, are hardly worth the charge of a fleet and army to reduce them; and I question whether it might be prudent or safe to attempt the Brobdingnagians; or whether an English army would be much at their ease with the Flying Island over their heads.  The Houyhnhnms indeed appear not to be so well prepared for war, a science to which they are perfect strangers, and especially against missive weapons.  However, supposing myself to be a minister of state, I could never give my advice for invading them.  Their prudence, unanimity, unacquaintedness with fear, and their love of their country, would amply supply all defects in the military art.  Imagine twenty thousand of them breaking into the midst of an European army, confounding the ranks, overturning the carriages, battering the warriors’ faces into mummy by terrible yerks from their hinder hoofs; for they would well deserve the character given to Augustus, Recalcitrat undique tutus.  But, instead of proposals for conquering that magnanimous nation, I rather wish they were in a capacity, or disposition, to send a sufficient number of their inhabitants for civilizing Europe, by teaching us the first principles of honour, justice, truth, temperance, public spirit, fortitude, chastity, friendship, benevolence, and fidelity.  The names of all which virtues are still retained among us in most languages, and are to be met with in modern, as well as ancient authors; which I am able to assert from my own small reading. (page 350-351)

As I mention above, I finished the book and turned it over to reread the beginning again. Certainly, I did not understand it fully, but the ultimate joke is on all of us. That I can appreciate.

Incidentally, in between each two-to-five year adventure, Gulliver returned home for a period of a few months. Each time, his wife greeted him with surprise. I kept hoping she would kick him out, and yet her consistent acceptance of him added, I suspect, to the ridiculous imitation of other adventure tales. (Of other contemporary tales, I’ve only read Robinson Crusoe, but Gulliver’s “thirst for adventure” was insanely ludicrous compared to Crusoe’s.)

I read Gulliver’s Travels as a part of my reader’s history of children’s literature project. Lerer did not discuss Gulliver’s Travels in great detail in his book, but upon reading it, it’s clear this novel is a part of the adventure literary tradition.

Have you heard of Gulliver’s adventures? From the brief descriptions of each land I mention above, which one would you prefer to live in? I’d like to stay where I am, despite it’s flaws, thank you very much.

• A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
• Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott
• Utopia by Thomas More
• Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
• Reading Reflections: A Book Kingdom
• Poetry for Young People: Robert Louis Stevenson (edited by Frances Schoonmaker)
• November Month in Review and December Reading Journal
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov + Giveaway
• The Arabian Nights II, trans. by Husain Haddawy

The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution

Beyond the appealing format of this book, however, is the content. Reading the constitution with Monk’s gloss helped me to comprehend just why the U.S. Constitution has withstood more than 200 years and a Civil War: the constitution is a document that adapts to the changing times, both through the process of amendment and through the significant process of judicial interpretation of legislation.

Certainly, The Words We Live By is not comprehensive. But what it lacks in expanse it makes up in readability and interest, at least to me. I seriously enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in understanding U.S. rights and government.

The most interesting section, at least to me, was the thirty pages discussing the first amendment, and the ways in which it has been interpreted. Most amendments garnered about 5 pages of interpretation, but the first amendment has been quite significant! I also enjoyed the history given during the discussion of the sections of the Constitution, as the history detailed why certain aspects of the government were designed as they were. And did you know that the Twenty-seventh Amendment was one of the original 12 amendments submitted in 1789? It was added to the constitution in 1992 after the required percentage of states ratified it, ultimately because of a college student’s campaign for it.

At any rate, I hope to revisit this book in a few years when I again feel shaky on what makes the constitution what it is. I certainly hope that Linda Monk updates it with a new edition in the future. (It was originally published in 2002, so I wonder what new verdicts may have changed things since then.)

For those in the United States, Happy Independence Day tomorrow!

This book counted for the 300s century for the Dewey Decimal Challenge.

If you have reviewed The Words We Live By on your site, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

• Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage
• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
• Speeches of Winston Churchill
• The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
• The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (abridged audio, read by the author)
• The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon
• Masterclass in Photography by Michael and Julien Busselle
• Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts
• Daughter of Destiny by Benazir Bhutto
• The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (The Man of Property)

While this was an incredibly challenging book for me to get through*, I am incredibly glad I persevered. While I of course was familiar with the Cold War relations between USSR and the USA, I hadn’t seriously considered the state of the world after the Cold War. Huntington’s book is quite interesting, although it is dated. Because it was written in 1995, I found myself wondering many times how 9/11 changed the face of the world in terms of his philosophies.

In some respects, I think 9/11 may have been a direct result of exactly the issues Huntington addresses. Western civilizations like the USA did not comprehend the significance of Islam and/or expected Islamic countries to both modernize and Westernize. Also, Western civilizations assume “Western” ways of thinking are superior to other civilization traditions. This simply adds to the conflict between the civilizations, and it makes sense that the rising generations of the civilizations grow up relatively “anti-Western.”

On the other hand, Huntington does not address terrorism and terrorist states much at all. I kept thinking something was missing in his picture of the world: where do terrorists fit in the picture of world civilizations and developing states? Is the world really just a collection of civilizations and states surrounding those civilizations? What about the rouges?

I’ve read the book, and there is a lot in it. I don’t feel qualified to say whether or not I agree with Huntington, or whether or not his arguments are sound. As an amateur (i.e., not a political science academic), I found it very interesting, albeit overwhelming. I also don’t want to start a political debate: I really don’t know what I’m talking about. I was interested in this book and I still am interested in the concepts.

I now wish to learn, for comparison purposes, what the other political theories are in this post-Cold War era.  Huntington wrote his book in the 1990s, just between the Cold War and this new age, whatever it has become. Even more, I want to know what the post-9/11 theories are. Can anyone suggest a book that might help me on that endeavor? While I’m not sure I’m up to it this month, I certainly want to learn at some point in the future. I hope that reading more political theory might make political theory in general less overwhelming.

I read this for the World Citizen Challenge. It certainly helped me appreciate my place in terms of world politics! The parts I most appreciated were his exploration of the difference between Westernization and modernization. It was important for me to see how my way of life is starkly different from that of many other civilizations simply because I’m Western, and Western is not necessarily better. I also appreciated the history Huntington discussed because it helped me understand his arguments a little better; I’m not familiar with political theory, but history I enjoy.

*My husband studied politics and economics as an undergraduate; he says this is actually a very easy book of this type to read. Nonetheless, I struggled.

Other Reviews:

If you have reviewed The Clash of Civilizations on your site, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

• Why Women Should Rule the World by Dee Dee Myers
• Daughter of Destiny by Benazir Bhutto
• Kissinger by Walter Isaacson
• National Poetry Month + Call for Poetry Posts
• Political Reading
• The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the U.S. Constitution by Linda Monk
• The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (abridged audio, read by the author)
• Comfort Reading
• The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki
• Speeches of Winston Churchill

1984 by George Orwell is such a book. In some respects, listening to it reminded me of my experience listening to Lord of the Flies recently: as the story progressed, I became more and more horrified and uncomfortable.

And that is, I think, Orwell’s purpose. 1984 is not meant to be a comfortable book.

Note that this post contains spoilers.

Winston Smith lives in a 1984 much different than the 1984 we really lived in. In his society, IngSoc (English Socialism) is the prevailing way of life and Big Brother is always watching for deviations from acceptable behavior via “telescreens.” There is little privacy and no freedoms. Your life is only lived for the party’s needs.

Like both Equality 7-2521 in Ayn Rand’s Anthem (reviewed here) and D-503 in Zamyatin’s We (reviewed here), Winston finds a place and time to write his thoughts, a highly inappropriate act. It seems writing private thoughts is the first stage of breaking free of totalitarianism, for in each book, writing (i.e., given voice to thoughts) seems to prompt rebellion. When Winston then falls in love (by itself a forbidden act), he becomes determined to find a way to gain freedom from the political party he hates so much.

Part of my problem is that I liked this beginning of the book very much, when Orwell develops the society and introduces Winston Smith as a deviant in the society. From there on out, things go wrong for Winston, as we learn the true purpose of the restrictive society: the goal of the Party is to make everyone not just obedient to Big Brother but actually to love Big Brother.

The horrifying part is that the country has ways of making people do so.

I did think about the other dystopias as I read. But even more so, I also recalled the book I read recently about Pakistan in the 1980s. There are people living under such totalitarian rule today around the world. While (hopefully) in real life there are no torture methods as perversely encompassing as those used in 1984, it is horrifying to realize that despotic leaders may still be forcing the untruths on their subjects, not just forcing obedience. It seems to be insanity to me.

In 1984, Winston Smith was expected to believe that 2 + 2 = 5. In Pakistan, one tortured prisoner indicated, using a metaphor, that he was not going to call “a donkey a horse” just because of Martial Law. Is there a difference? Yes. The person in totalitarian Pakistan still had a choice to believe or not. Winston Smith, in the fictional Oceania, lost the freedom to believe in even the most basic truths.

I thought 1984 had flaws as a novel. First, it had a few extended philosophical discussions that honestly bored me (such as the extended excerpts from the book about the history of Oceania). Such philosophical moments weren’t as dull as those in Ayn Rand’s Anthem became, but it still bored me to some extent. Also, Orwell seemed to really enjoy creating “newspeak,” which was the adapted language of Oceania, at the expense of developing characters and describing scenes. I thought he could have focused more on characterization: interesting as the world of 1984 was, I wanted to learn more about what the people thought of that world.

Orwell indicated that 1984 was meant as an extreme example of the dangers of perverse totalitarianism (see Wikipedia). While 1984 had some flaws, it was still a chilling reminder of what “totalitarian” means.  In the end, Winston was forced in to a sort of insane half-life: a life in which he could never have any personal convictions.

I hated the ending, I hated the forced betrayal, and I hated the government of Big Brother. And I think that’s the point.

Other Reviews:

• A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook
• Book Nook Club
• Book Nut
• Book-a-rama
• Just Add Books
• Life and Times of a “New” New Yorker
• Reading Reflections
• Shannon Loves Books
• The Book Blog
• The Zen Leaf
• Bibliofreak
• Shelf Love

If you have reviewed 1984, leave a link the comments and I’ll add it here.

• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle
• Daughter of Destiny by Benazir Bhutto
• Three Cups of Tea: Counterpoints (Guest Post)
• Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman
• Black No More by George S. Schuyler
• Author Weekly Geeks Answers
• Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding

I must have read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar with the rest of my tenth grade class, but I honestly didn’t remember any of it. I decided to read it this month as a part of the Martel-Harper Challenge, for which Yann Martel chooses “book[s] that ha[ve] been known to expand stillness.”

Reading Julius Caesar just once didn’t do anything to help “expand stillness.” I was confused: it started in the middle of a dramatic scene. I didn’t know who the characters were and why they were making the choices they made. Why did Caesar consider Brutus a friend? Why was Brutus called “honorable” when he was committing murder? What is “honor”? Did any of this really happen?

But as I spent a few days rereading portions of Julius Caesar, listening to the audiobook, watching the movie, and reading various commentaries about the play, I was enlightened. I think it did encourage “stillness” because I wasn’t just reading to turn pages; I was reading to learn and experience. I seriously loved the experience of truly reading Shakespeare, even by myself.

Note that this post contains “spoilers.”

Helps to Reading Shakespeare

Two things really helped me get into this play. First, I read some commentary; my copy, a Signet Classics edition published in the 1950s, had some essays at the end of it and I found some others. My edition also had some interesting “original source” material to help me understand where Shakespeare got his ideas: Plutarch’s “Life of Julius Caesar.” I was therefore able to get a general grasp of the history of the scenario. The commentary also showed me that literature is interpreted in different ways depending on the era:  the essayists referred to Julius Caesar as “Big Brother” and “Kruschev.” Thus, Shakespeare’s play is seen through the eyes of the cold war!

When the play starts, the commoners are rejoicing at Caesar’s triumphant return. Some of the tribunes, however, are not happy. From reading the notes and commentary, I got the impression that this was because Caesar was, to some extent, a sort of dictator in the republic of Rome; those politically aware saw Caesar as a downfall to freedom.  Upon rereading, I found that these concepts are detailed in the conversations among the actors. Understanding the basic historical context (what the audience in 1600s England would have known) certainly helped my overall understanding.

Secondly, after reading through the commentaries, I listened to the audiobook in full. Both really helped me get a sense of the language. I love it! I could hear the rhythm of each line, and I loved hearing the lines “acted.” I also watched the 1953 movie (Marlon Brando as Marc Antony); I didn’t like the movie as much because they changed the order of some of the scene and I didn’t think the characters always presented their lines as I would have thought. I guess that’s just personal interpretation, though.

The Themes of Julius Caesar

I am not a Shakespearean scholar; I am just a reader. But upon my study of Julius Caesar in this past week, I loved the overall theme of honor and “heroes.” I’m sure there are many ways of reading this play; these are just some thoughts on one theme.

I found that most of the characters were despicable. They were politicians with a certain level of power and they took advantage of the masses.

Who, then, is the hero of the tragedy of Julius Caesar?

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar, the title character, was certainly not a hero. From his first appearance, he appeared power hungry.

“Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;” he said to Antony. “He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.” (I.ii.194-195). Caesar did not want smart, independent thinkers in his government. He was powerful, and he knew it. In Act I, scene 2, those men that had bitterly taken down the decorations of Caesar in Act I, scene 1, have been banished (lines 285-286). Caesar is intent on limiting the freedoms of those who disagree with him. I can see, from the evidences in the play, how Caesar was a totalitarian leader.

Beyond that, Caesar was a conceited leader. He was constantly speaking of himself in the third person: “Caesar shall go forth.” (II.ii.28). When a soothsayer and then yet another man warn Caesar of his impending destruction, Caesar ignores is, even when the message says, “If thou beest not immortal, look about you” (II.ii.6-7). But Caesar also says directly that he is perfect: “Know, Caesar doth no wrong…/ But I am constant as the Northern Star” (III.i.47, 60). Caesar considers himself somewhat immortal and perfect.

These flaws may have been his downfall, for Caesar made many enemies. Caesar says, “The valiant never taste of death but once” (II.ii.33), and yet he was stabbed dozens of times. He tastes death many times as he watches his friends fatally betray him. Caesar was no hero.

Marc Antony

In act III, scene 1, shortly after Caesar has been murdered, Caesar’s former right-hand man Marc Antony sends a servant to beg audience of Brutus and the other conspirators. When he arrives, he shakes the hand of each conspirator to show his friendship. Had Antony truly been a friend to Caesar?

After the conspirators leave the scene, we hear Antony’s thoughts and realize his actions before had been an act. “Thou art the ruins of the noblest man / that ever lived …” (III.i. 256-257), he says over Caesar’s body. He truly did love Caesar and served him. But just as Cassius was acting out of his personal injuries, Antony’s subsequent words show that he is acting in order to gain revenge on the conspirators. Shortly after his touching words about Caesar’s greatness, he speaks of war and bloodshed, including “infants quarter’d” (II.i.268). He wants revenge, but doesn’t care about the cost.

He gives an impassioned speech to the Romans in the forum in a speech that many remember: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!” (III.ii.75). In this speech, he claims that he and Caesar both loved the Roman people, and Caesar has even bequeathed a legacy to all Romans. He is convincing in his dedication to the Romans.

And yet, a subsequent scene, a private one, shows the true character of Marc Antony: “These many shall die; their names are pricked “(IV.i.1), he says, condemning senators to death. A few lines later, he asked the other leaders of the Triumvirate to “Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine/ How to cut off some charge in legacies.” (IV. i.8-9). Thus we see that Antony is not a noble, honorable man: he is a political cheater, who, once in power, will do what he can to assassinate the leaders of the republic and protect the financial interests of the dictatorship. Marc Antony is no hero.

Cassius

Of all the conspirators, Cassius is the most evil and the most clearly a politician out for revenge. From the beginning, Cassius speaks of Caesar with derision (“immortal Caesar” [I.ii.60] he says with sarcasm). He is annoyed that Caesar is considered “a god” and when he speaks of seeing Caesar ill (“this god did shake” [I.ii.121]), it is said in bitterness. In act I, scene 2, Cassius says in an aside that he wants to seduce Brutus in to thinking the same things so something can be done (lines 308-312). It’s all a personal rivalry, and Cassius feels he has enough power to take his revenge. He says: “Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius” (I.iii.90). He continues:

And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?…
… What trash is Rome,
what rubbish  and what offal, when it serves
For the base matter to illuminate
So vile a thing as Caesar. (I.iii.103, 108-111)

In some respects, when one thinks of Julius Caesar as a totalitarian leader, Cassius’s concepts of revenging himself on this wicked leader might make sense. Yet, Cassius fails to ever speak of “honor” or the people of Rome. He is acting for himself. Even in the midst of battle, his friend Brutus refers to him as a “hot friend” (IV.ii.19), and it is clear that Cassius is greedy for gold, not for fighting a war (IV.iii.10). Caesar is dead, and so Cassius’s dedication to Brutus’s cause has wavered.

When Cassius prepares for suicide, he knows he is a loser, and, as he said in act I, he will free himself from bondage. As he dies, he says is “Caesar, thou art revenged,/ Even with the sword that kill’d thee.” (V.iii.46-47). Even as he dies, his words are about revenge. Cassius is no hero.

Marcus Brutus

Marcus Brutus is a conspirator to Caesar’s death, and yet from the beginning, he admits conflicting emotions (I.ii.39-40, 46). His conflict is between the fact that he loves Caesar, and yet does not want him to be a king (I.ii.83-84). He worries,  “The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins / Remorse from power” (II.i.18-19), and he does not know which direction Caesar’s leadership will go: good or bad.

When Cassius spurns Brutus to consider murdering Caesar, Brutus ultimately agrees, but with this thought: “for my part,/ I know no personal cause to spurn at him/ But for the general” (II.i.10-12). Unlike Cassius and the other conspirators, therefore, Brutus wants to act for the welfare of the people, not for his own grudges. He makes a promise to Rome (II.i.56), and later tells the public the reasons that he killed Caesar: “not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more” (III.ii.21). He logically warns the public that under Caesar they would have been bondsmen to a dictator.

He also thinks highly of the other conspirators. When he urges the other conspirators to refrain from hurting Antony or any others of the leadership, he says that “Our course will seem too bloody/ …/ We will all stand up against the spirit of Caesar” (II.i.163, 168). For Brutus, then, killing Caesar is about killing tyranny, and not about killing an individual: Brutus suggests that killing Caesar is as a sacrifice for a right cause (much as the priests would have done) and not murder as hunters would do (II.i.173-174). He later asks Cassius: “what villain touched his body, that did stab, / And not for justice” (IV.iii.20-21). Brutus is thus tragically blind to the personal vendetta so many of the conspirators had against Caesar; for the others, murdering Caesar was for revenge, not necessarily “justice” or the people of Rome.

In the end, it is clear that Brutus thought he was being honorable in saving Rome from tyranny. Cassius at one point tells Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ but in ourselves that we are underlings” (I.ii.140-141). And early in the play, Brutus claims “I love/ the name of honor more than I fear death” (I.ii.89). Brutus takes these two concepts upon himself in the end when it becomes clear to him that the conspirator’s murder was not honorable, and they are losing the war. At such a moment, despite his own original reasoning, he brings his own death, still speaking of worthiness and honor. He says:

Our enemies have beat us to the pit.
It is more worthy to leap in ourselves
Than tarry till they push us.  (V.v.23-25)

As he dies, he claims he does so with all his will: “Caesar, now be still; / I killed not thee with half so good a will.” (V.v.50-51).

In the beginning, he’d convinced himself that honor came with Caesar’s murder. In the end, then, he is sure he lacks honor. And yet, he kills himself with a sure determination that he is still being honorable.

Was Brutus, then, a hero? He thought he was honorable at every stage, and he sought to serve only Rome. But he was ultimately tragic because murdering a popular, loved leader was not honorable.

My Thoughts

To me, Brutus’s intentions made him honorable. Out of all the characters, his was the most likable because he wasn’t acting simply for himself. I wanted Brutus to be able to succeed.

I think part of his downfall was choosing to join with others who lacked honor in every sense of the word. While he acted for Rome, they did not. Therefore, the cause was hopeless from the beginning. In a sense, his tragedy was having the wrong friends. Honorable Brutus’s fall was then the true tragedy.

I think Brutus was a tragic hero, or, as Antony says, “This was a man” (V.v.75). For don’t we all, as humans, face tragedy in our lives, despite our best intentions?

What do you think makes someone a hero? What does “honorable’ mean to you?

What are your thoughts about Julius Caesar? Did you find anyone “honorable”?

Read for the Martel-Harper Challenge and for the BiblioShakespeare Challenge.

• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• King Lear by William Shakespeare
• Poetry for Young People: William Shakespeare
• Reading Journal (May 27): Distraction
• Poetry Friday: Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare
• Reading Journal (June 4): Reading More Than One Book at a Time
• Death and War in Children’s Literature: Two Newberys about the Revolution

Much of her autobiography was written prior to 1988, before she was elected prime minister. She says she wrote it “to set down the record of the brutal Martial Law regime of General Zia ul-Haq” (page 374). The remainder of her book shares how she was briefly allowed to serve the country and restore some democratic freedoms before a dictatorship again gained control of the country.

Despite all the drama with which Bhutto wrote, for much of the time I was reading, I fundamentally didn’t understand the import of resisting the regime. From my couch in the USA, it seemed to be an unnecessary, violent political struggle. Then I read a letter Bhutto received from a political prisoner:

I prefer to be hanged than live under the oppressor. To give in is not our principle. We are not ready to call a donkey a horse, or black or white, out of fear of Martial Law. (page 276)

I finally understood a little bit what it meant to live under a dictator: it meant denying what you know to be true because you’re threatened.

That type of understanding is why I read about the histories of other cultures. I feel I cannot relate at all: I live in a peaceful country and have my entire life. Bhutto’s story is one of a country that had been (relatively) peaceful her entire life (for she was born into an independent Pakistan), until a military dictator took over the democratically elected government and established military rule.

Benazir Bhutto shares her passion for Pakistan, the people of Pakistan, and democracy in her autobiography. I only wish it were better told: Daughter of Destiny had serious flaws that made it a frustrating read.

Destiny and Choices

Because Benazir Bhutto was born into a wealthy family, she was given many opportunities as a Pakistani and as a woman. She learned about democracy and she became a role-model for women, showing them that they can make a difference. She reminded me of Katharine Graham’s role as a woman in power (which I read about in Graham’s autobiography Personal History, reviewed here), and also  of Nelson Mandela’s fight for freedom and basic rights (which I read about in his autobiography A Long Walk to Freedom, read in pre-blogging days). Mandela, too, was wrongly imprisoned for many years, all while being a leader of an illegal political organization.

But of course Benazir Bhutto’s story is far different from these other two individuals. Bhutto reiterates throughout her book that she was “destined” to be a leader. In some respects, I agree. Her father was a politician and eventually prime minister, thus encouraging her interest in the subject. However, Benazir Bhutto had choices. She chose to study politics, while her sister did not and her brothers became terrorists. When Bhutto knew that she would be going to jail, she stayed and faced the dictator; many people did leave the country. No, Benazir had choices: her life was not destined. She chose to walk in dangerous paths.

Problems with the Text

Unfortunately, despite the fascinating subject matter, I found Daughter of Destiny to be horribly written.

Most of the book jumps from past to present tense, using flashbacks. Yet, even the flashbacks are not consistent or clear. Even without tense shifts, her thoughts are all over the board. In some places, it seems she can’t remember what the focus of a chapter is (was there ever a focus?). She desperately needed an editor or ghost writer to help her gain structure.

I also disliked how many of the dramatic events were told as if the book were a memoir. Bhutto included very specific conversations that dragged for multiple pages, complete with character actions and overly staged emotions. I feel the story would have been dramatic without the added details, so this was rather painful to read. I wished for a more straight-forward “this is my life” account, rather than a dramatic attempt to convince me that the politics of a dictator are bad.

My last criticism is that Benazir Bhutto complained a lot. Of course, this is a political biography of a political person. I didn’t realize until page 376 (as quoted above) that her main purpose was to show the wickedness of the Zia dictatorship; I thought I was reading about her life. In that sense, then, this book was a very negative portrayal of her life: every horrible thing that happened to Benazir was General Zia’s fault. I felt she failed to take responsibility for things that really were her choice. Of course General Zia made life challenging, but he didn’t make every small choice for her.

Politics Are Hard for Me

I enjoyed reading this book, but I struggle very much with these types of books: I find myself very angry with the U.S. government’s choices, and I wish something else could have been done.

In this particular case, I also found myself angry with Benazir Bhutto’s biases, especially about her father. She venerates him through the book, even considering that when he was prime minister in the 1970s, he began a nuclear program. I thought this was quite strange, considering his greatly impoverished country needed education (and basic rights!) for women and girls. It was odd to me that Benazir didn’t see the strangeness of that political decision in the midst of the Cold War. I’m not convinced her father was the wonderful leader she always claimed him to be.

I’m also not convinced that Benazir was necessarily a great political leader. Not that she was a bad one, but I felt I wasn’t getting all the story. It confused me that the Bhutto family always led. While their family obviously had the financial means, it seemed undemocratic for the leadership to default to the wealthy widow or child of the previous leader. Rich heiresses (or heirs) do not necessarily make good democratic politicians. Even when Benazir wrote her political will in 2007, she requested that her husband take over the party. That seems odd and inappropriate to me: throughout this book he never had political inclinations. He is now president of Pakistan. Does this seem odd to anyone else?

All that said, I’m glad for Bhutto’s leadership in the country when they desperately needed a democratic leader. I am very glad that Obama is expressing support of Pakistan’s democracy, and I hope the democracy can last. Pakistan needs support if this democracy is to be sustained: the country seems rather susceptible to military dictatorships.

Why I Read It

When Myrthe mentioned the Global Voices Book Challenge, I decided to join. The concept of the challenge is to read a book, fiction or nonfiction, about a country that you have never read about before by April 23. I chose to read about Pakistan;  although I read Three Cups of Tea last year, that was mostly about the American. I also didn’t finish by April 23. So I cheated.

All that said, I’m glad I took the time to read this, even though it was poorly written. I learned a lot, and I’m all the more interested in the region.

Benazir Bhutto also recently wrote Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, this time with the help of professional writer (thank goodness!). I’ve read that it’s a rebuttal to Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, which I’m currently reading. I look forward to her thoughts.

Can you recommend a nonfiction book about Pakistan and/or Afghanistan? I’m interested in reading more about the region.

I read Daughter of Destiny for the Global Voices Book Challenge and for the World Citizen Challenge (“Biography”).

Other Reviews:

If you have reviewed Daughter of Destiny or Daughter of the East on your site, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell
• Three Cups of Tea: Counterpoints (Guest Post)
• My Life, According to Literature
• Martel-Harper Challenge (Fourth Quarter 2008)
• Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle
• March in Review
• Twenty Years at Hull-House by Jane Addams
• Kissinger by Walter Isaacson
• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
• My Victorian Summer: We Two by Gillian Gill and Armadale by Wilkie Collins + Reading Journal

I loved reading Vladimir Nabokov’s short stories a few months ago because his control of language is so powerful, although I did feel that some of his stories were rather odd. Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire is similar in that it is both odd and powerfully written. It is a masterwork of creation: who but Nabokov would have thought to write a book like this? In fact, Pale Fire is so odd, I have a hard time calling it a novel.

Pale Fire has two main parts. One part is a 999-line poem (about 30 pages) by the recently deceased (fictional) John Shade. The other part is (fictional) Professor Charles Kinbote’s commentary on the poem (about 185 pages). Nabokov has expertly woven a completely unrelated commentary in with a fairly coherent poem. Trust me: it is funny, in a subtle way.

In his forward, Kinbote carefully explains that we should begin with reading his commentary, and only reference the poem on occasion. Kinbote believes his commentary shares the real meaning of Shade’s poem.

I did not trust Kinbote’s instructions for reading the book, just as I didn’t trust most of what he said. And yet, there is a humor behind his conceit and pride. From the beginning of that forward, the reader began to suspect that something was not quite right with Kinbote and his commentary. Kinbote has his own story to share, all about his native country of Zembla, and he sees everything through that filter. Kinbote’s conceit got on my nerves to some extent. Others in my LibraryThing Group Reads group seemed to think it was laugh-out-loud funny. I laughed out loud a little, but by the end I was a bit tired of Kinbote’s long-winded discourses on Zembla.

I think the true genius behind this story is how the poem and the commentary do coincide. They don’t coincide in the ways that Kinbote wants them to, but there are influences of Kinbote on Shade’s text. I think it was a clever idea for Nabokov to “misinterpret” his own poem (since, of course, he actually wrote all the writing and created all the characters). It seemed to me that Nabokov is, in a sense, mocking all who analyze poetry too much: he’s showing a completely distorted “interpretation” of a poem.

But I think the deeper purposes behind this book are beyond me. On Wikipedia, there are some speculations on Nabokov’s actual meaning behind Pale Fire, including a quote from Nabokov. (The article has spoilers so I’ll avoid quoting them here.) I thought Pale Fire was making fun of people who look for hidden meanings, so I have a hard time believing in Nabokov’s own declared hidden meanings. I think he’s making fun of us there, too. But then again, I was one of the people in the group read who didn’t look up every unknown word (there are lots of them in “Kinbote’s” erudite sentences). Maybe I’m just not looking hard enough; Pale Fire, I thought, didn’t need all that much looking.

In the end, I am torn between thinking Pale Fire is genius because of how Nabokov set it up and being completely annoyed by Kinbote’s self-conceit and cluelessness. I do ackowledge that it was a fascinating concept and somewhat amusing to read, albeit irritating at points.

I read Pale Fire for the 9 for 09 Challenge (“Used.”) I purchased it for $2.50 at a used book store in November. This soft-cover, 1968 copy has a fully intact cover (albeit ugly), all the words, and yellowing pages. If you are interested in reading Pale Fire, I’ll send it you. Let me know if you are interested; I’ll choose a winner Friday.

If you have read Pale Fire, did you think it was serious or a joke? I’m leaning toward the joke myself.

Other Reviews:

• 5-Squared (Amanda)
• Rose City Reader

If you have reviewed Pale Fire on your site, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

• Stories by Vladimir Nabokov
• A Meme, A Farewell, and A Giveaway Winner
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Poetry Friday: If by Rudyard Kipling
• March in Review
• Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dogs by Kitty Burns Florey + Giveaway
• A Poem in Your Pocket: Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins
• Milton in May: Comus and Lycidas by John Milton
• Reading The Iliad by Homer, trans. by Robert Fagles
• Milton in May (erm, and June): Paradise Lost, Books 10 to 12 + Two Reading Aids

Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman, the Newbery Award winner for 1988, is absolutely fantastic. I learned a lot as I read the short 150 pages about the life Abraham Lincoln, complete with a brief introduction to the political turmoil surrounding him in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s. I forgot I was reading a children’s book.

Freedman intersperses his clear, straight-forward, and intensely interesting text with photographs and paintings of Abraham Lincoln and his era. Thus, I felt like I could see the development of Abraham Lincoln throughout his life. My favorite picture of Lincoln was this one. Lincoln said it was his best likeness, but some people, notably his wife, didn’t like the disheveled hair!

There were interesting facts and tidbits that made Abraham Lincoln real for me. The best part was it was all backed up by Freedman’s research. In the acknowledgments, he includes a list of museums, libraries, and books that he referenced while writing this book. In the text, he debunks some myths for lack of evidence.

In the end, I fully trust Freedman’s account of Lincoln to be as close to fact as possible. And yet, it was easy to read, delightful, and approachable. I highly recommend Lincoln: A Photobiography to anyone, child or adult, interested in learning about our sixteenth president.

I read Lincoln: A Photobiography for the U.S. Presidents Reading Project and my personal Newbery Award reading challenge.

If you have reviewed Lincoln: A Photobiography on your site, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

• Abraham Lincoln: A Man of Faith and Courage by Joe Wheeler
• Ongoing and Personal Challenges – 2009
• Death and War in Children’s Literature: Two Newberys about the Revolution
• March in Review
• Kissinger by Walter Isaacson
• August in Review
• Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukerji
• Why Women Should Rule the World by Dee Dee Myers
• The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (abridged audio, read by the author)
• July in Review

By itself, Animal Farm is an odd, but amusing tale. The animals are successful in their revolutions against humans and the reader wants to cheer them on. Then the subsequent slow transformation of Animal Farm back to the necessary evil of doing business with humans (for Animal Farm is, unfortunately, not completely self-sufficient) seems sad, for we wish success to the remarkable animals, despite the obvious treachery of the leading animals.

Put into the cultural context in which it was written, however, Animal Farm clearly mocks the rise of communism in Russia. To me, Animal Farms‘ ironic humor becomes all the more sad when one realizes the correlating story among humans suffering in Orwell’s contemporary Russia. I liked rereading Animal Farm, and now that I understand a bit more of the context, I found it quite sad, and not nearly as funny as the first time I read it.

Version of Horn and Hoof Flag, based on hammer and sickle, courtesy Wikipedia

I read Animal Farm for the Martel-Harper challenge. In the letter that Yann Martel sent to Stephen Harper, Martel shares how literature makes history portable:

Animal Farm is a perfect exemplar of one of the things that literature can be: portable history. A reader who knows nothing about 20th-century history? Who has never heard of Joseph Stalin or Leon Trotsky or the October Revolution? Not a problem: Animal Farm will convey to that reader the essence of what happened to our neighbours across the Arctic. The perversion of an ideal, the corruption of power, the abuse of language, the wreckage of a nation-it’s all there, in a scant 120 pages. And having read those pages, the reader is made wise of the ways of the politically wicked. That too is what literature can be: an inoculation.

Because I’m not all that familiar with the details of the beginning of the USSR, I defer to the Wikipedia experts for that. The Wikipedia entry for Animal Farm clarifies who some of the animals may represent: each character seems to directly relate to actual people in Russian history.

Reading about …

Animal Farm has been called an allegory, a satire, and a fable. I defined satire a few months ago; now it’s time to visit allegory and fable.

Allegory

allegory, noun, 1: the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence ; also : an instance (as in a story or painting) of such expression
2: a symbolic representation : emblem (Merriam-Webster.com)

In A Handbook to Literature (eighth edition), Harmon and Holman go beyond the basic dictionary definition to explain that allegory is a form of metaphor. That is, that

objects, persons, and actions of a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. … it represents one thing in the guise of another. (page 12)

Harmon and Holman also clarify that allegory differs from symbolism: symbolism doesn’t necessarily incorporate ideas into the structure of a piece as does allegory. Types of allegory include parables and fables.

Fable

fable, noun, : a fictitious narrative or statement: as a: a legendary story of supernatural happenings b: a narration intended to enforce a useful truth ; especially : one in which animals speak and act like human beings c: falsehood , lie (Merriam-Webster.com)

I was surprised to learn that fables especially have animals speaking and acting like humans. That puts Aesop’s Fables into perspective. I read and reviewed them last year, but I didn’t think about what that term means. Most of Aesop had animals acting as humans, and the results “taught” the reader a lesson.  Harmon and Holman share a few notable fables other than Aesop, including Kipling’s Just So Stories, which I also read and reviewed last year (not realizing they were considered “fables”). Harmon and Holman define fable as “a brief tale told to point to a moral” (page 207).

Classifying Animal Farm

Maybe this is blasphemous, but I don’t particularly think Animal Farm is a spectacularly written book: I don’t feel very drawn into the language. It was a short novella, and I felt Orwell “told” more than he “showed” in many of the sections.

That said, I do think Animal Farm is a remarkable little novella. It was written for its story, and Orwell did a great job of creating a “realistic” allegory to illustrate his purpose. Animal Farm is clearly an allegory in the form of a fable. In places it feels heavy-handed, but that is the purpose of allegory. In some respects, Orwell wrote it to be heavy-handed. He’s purposely trying to represent something. As Yann Martel said in his letter to Stephen Harper, it’s a political book, and “It deals with one of the few matters on which we can all agree: the evil of tyranny.” I think that theme makes it great.

(Not surprisingly, Animal Farm was rejected by many publishers during World War II; it was not published until late 1945. This is, of course, despite the fact “Russia” is never mentioned in its pages.)

Someone suggested to me that Animal Farm is a novel to read once: it doesn’t speak to one person individually, but rather comments on a situation. However, Animal Farm shows up on many “best novel of the century” lists. I’m not sure what I think about either of those classifications. I, in fact, did reread it, but I do think there are better “best novels” out there.

What do you think about Animal Farm? Did Animal Farm speak to you personally, as novels sometimes do? Or is this a novel written with a purpose that eludes you? Or, does the heavy-handed purpose help you like it more? Should Animal Farm remain on “best novel of the last century” lists, or should it be stricken?

Other Reviews:

• Blue Archipelago
• SMS Book Reviews
• The Book Blog
• MarysLibrary
• 5-Squared (Amanda)

If you have reviewed Animal Farm on your site, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

• Aesop’s Fables with Introduction by G.K. Chesterton
• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell
• Two Books by Eric Carle
• Divine Songs by Isaac Watts (Poetry Friday)
• Ingenuity and Authority: Who Really Wrote Aesop’s Fables?
• A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
• Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
• Martel-Harper Challenge (Fourth Quarter 2008)
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle

While the message in modern children’s literature may not be so thinly veiled, to me it seems obvious that authors still impart their subtle messages into a text that is otherwise a story. This is all the more obvious in stories for children.

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (a Newbery Award winner) and My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier (a Newbery Honor book) both tell the story of a 12- to 16-year-old boy during the American Revolution of the 1770s. Both books were written by both accomplished children’s authors and historians; both are accurate portrayals of war. And yet, each story has a distinct message about war. What that message is should be obvious to adults when they realize that Johnny Tremain was written in the 1940s and My Brother Sam was written in the 1970s.

Note: While the following review and analysis may provide “spoilers,” these “spoilers” seem pretty obvious given the subject matter of the books: The American Revolutionary War. Therefore, I don’t believe they would actually “spoil” the book for an interested adult reader.

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

Johnny Tremain is a proud, orphaned, silversmith apprentice in 1773 Boston and the envy of successful silversmiths, like Paul Revere, when he is accidentally crippled. Newly humbled and searching for work in a print shop, he discovers a new world, that of rebellion, via his friend, Rab Silsbee. Over the coming years, he joins the revolutionary movement, working as a spy for John Hancock, Paul Revere, and James Otis in the increasingly interesting scene of revolutionary Boston. When war breaks out, he is eager to take his part to fight against the tyrannical British who unfairly tax the innocent citizens of Boston.

Johnny Tremain is written with an engaging story line and familiar characters from history. I imagine that Johnny’s story and Esther Forbes’ historical detail will captivate the imagination a young reader, especially as the events of the Tea Party and the opening shots at Lexington occur. Because the story occurs during the early stages of the revolutionary war in the political center of those years, politics are detailed throughout; therefore, it may be dense for some children. Nevertheless, I enjoyed rereading Johnny’s story, and the tender patriotism tore at my heart, even as the hopeful account of changing times reminded me of the significance of all those who fought for right.

My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Tim Meeker is just 12 years old in 1775 when his 16-year-old brother Sam leaves Yale to enter the Rebel army. When the war visits Tim’s quiet Tory town of Redding, Connecticut, it is changed forever, and yet Tim cannot decide which side is right: the Rebels, who are sometimes called Patriots, and who Sam is willing to die with, or the Tories, who believe the King is the lawful leader of the American colonies. As both the Patriots and the Tories take his loved ones and friends away from him, Tim mourns the pain that comes with growing up. In the end, Tim despises the horrors of war and hates that it leaves no person untouched.

My Brother Sam is Dead is written in captivating, easy-to-read modern English that drew me into the story and conversations. As each event unfolded, I felt I was a part of the action and I eagerly awaited the resolution. Though I’d read this as a child, I’d forgotten the heartbreaking details and mourned along with Tim as the horrors of war entered his idyllic village and broke his heart.

Signs of the Times?

Johnny Tremain was written in the post-World War II era, in which returning veterans were applauded and cheered for their patriotism in saving others in the world from tyranny. In like manner, Johnny was a patriot who fought so that “a man might stand up.” In fact, during a secret meeting of the Sons of Liberty, James Otis says:

[We fight] for [the rights of] men and women and children all over the world. … There shall be no more tyranny. A handful of men cannot seize power over thousands. A man shall choose who it is shall rule over him. The peasants of France, the serfs of Russia. Hardly more than animals now. But because we fight, they shall see freedom like a new sun rising in the west. … (page 178-179)

Johnny Tremain also contained murders and deaths. This was war. Yet, it ultimately ended on a note of hope for the future:

Hundred would die, but not the thing they died for. (page 256)

My Brother Sam is Dead, on the other hand, was written in the post-Vietnam era, during which time the violence of war was broadcast on television screens around the country and protests against the murder of innocent citizens were common. The novel included the murder and death of many innocent victims, many of whom really lived and died, as the historical note at the end of the novel explains. It ended with this:

Free of the British domination, the nation has prospered and I along with it … But somehow, even fifty years later, I keep thinking that there might have been another way, beside war, to achieve the same end. (page 211)

For Tim Meeker, the war personally hurt him; it was ultimately a negative solution.

What’s Your Preference?

I completely enjoyed both accounts of the American Revolutionary War. Both were accurate: war can be honorable and full of excitement when one feels the cause is worth fighting. But it can also be horrifying when one simply wants to live life. Each side did both right and wrong in various circumstances. Which side would I have been on?

In the end, it interests me that the post-war era during which each novel was written dramatically influenced the underlying message of the Revolutionary War for the novel.

It’s also interesting to consider the violence in each novel. My Brother Sam is Dead (as indicated by the title) has lots of violence in particular.

Should violent acts of war and murder be edited out of children’s literature?  In Puritan times, such as when Pilgrim’s Progress was written, violence was not kept from children. Seth Lerer writes of the Puritan philosophy in Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History:

All children’s literature recalls an unrecoverable past, a lost age before adulthood. And all children die – they must, to become grown-ups. (page 83-84)

Johnny Tremain, while it did contain violence, seemed to have “contained” violence: it was more tame than My Brother Sam.

• Do you think war violence should be present in children’s literature?
• What new perspective do you think we would put on the Revolutionary War if we wrote about it today?
• Have you noticed an author’s agenda (or era) coming through in any other children’s books?

If you reviewed Johnny Tremain or My Brother Sam is Dead on your site, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

• January 2009 Month in Review and February Reading Journal
• Death in Children’s Literature: Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
• Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts
• Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales
• Speak, Child: The Illiad as the Infancy of Children’s Literature
• Robinson Crusoe Adaptations for Children
• Two Books by Seth Lerer (Inventing English and Children’s Literature)
• My Life, According to Literature
• Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
• Stiff by Mary Roach: A Change Your Life (or Rather, Death) Book

Image via Wikipedia

Last week I reread Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public as a part of the Martel-Harper Challenge.

While I was well aware that Jonathan Swift’s short essay is classic satire, I guess because my own chubby one-year-old was crawling around on the floor as I read, I wasn’t laughing out loud at Swift’s well-known call for cannibalism and infanticide.

I’m glad I reread it, though, because I appreciated reading a literary form that I don’t normally read: a satiric essay. I also learned some things about history that I didn’t know.

The Essay in Context

I know very little about Ireland in the early 1700s. But I can deduce a number of things from just the beginning of Swift’s essay. For example, from the first few paragraphs, I learned:

• The average person in Ireland was very poor and many people were starving; there were many widows without any way of supporting their families.
• Even these poor families had many, many children, which obviously add to the poverty. (While in the first year the babies might not have extensive food and clothing needs, beyond the first year, they certainly did.)
• Children of the destitute grew up to be thieves, thus adding to the social problems in Ireland.
• Mothers had abortions rather than bring additional children into the destitute world.
• Children were not appreciated or cared for; they were abused.
• The landlords didn’t treat the workers very well.

With that background, Swift claims that something must be done to save the reputation of the country; apparently, the wealthy were concerned by the “present deplorable state of the kingdom” because of this social problem of the destitute.

That was why Swift offers his own solution:

[I]t is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for [the mothers] in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, [the children] shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands. … I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

In other words, Swift’s solution was economic: pay the mothers for their children and use the children to solve the food shortage. Then, the children will be appreciated (no more abuse because they need to be in good condition); they will be wanted (no more abortions because mothers want the financial compensation); and they will be useful (no more thievery; instead, they will feed the rich). Swift gives many more reasons, carefully thought out.

The Essay as Satire

While I still don’t know much about Ireland in the 1700s, I can tell you that cannibalism was not an “accepted” way of solving problems at that time. Swift’s essay is satirical.

I felt rather clueless when I sat down to write this review. It’s one thing to read an eight-page essay; it’s another thing to try to write some coherent thoughts about it. While I knew that Swift’s essay is satire, I couldn’t say exactly what satire is. I had to turn to A Handbook to Literature by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman (a favorite reference book from my college days):

SATIRE. A work of manner that blends a censorious attitude with humor and wit for improving human institutions or humanity. Satirist attempt through laughter not so much to tear down as to inspire a remodeling. If attackers simply abuse, they are writing invective; if they are personal and splenetic, they are writing sarcasm; they are sad and morose over the state of society, they are writing irony or a jeremiad. … Most often, satire deals less with great sinners and criminals than with the general run of fools, knaves, ninnies, oafs, codgers, and frauds. (page 461 of eighth edition; italics added)

In A Modest Proposal, Swift did censure the British people, and he was certainly calling for a remodeling! But he actually wanted the wealthy to change. The poor were in the midst of a downward cycle; the rich, apparently, had been criticizing them but not doing much to solve the huge problems of society.

A Political Call to Action

Obviously, Swift’s humorous solutions to the problems in Ireland in the early 1700s were not reasonable; he knew that no one would sell their infants as the next main dish in order to pay their bills. But he saw problems with the way things were: his essay was a call for change in some way.

I decided to reread A Modest Proposal because it’s on the list of books that author Yann Martel sent to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.  When he sent this book, Martel sent a letter, as always. This time, he critiqued P.M. Harper for cutting arts funding. He ends the letter with this:

Mr. Harper: Are you preparing a ragout?

Now, I don’t know much about Canadian politics or national art budgets. But this context showed me that satiric political essays can be relevant today. Martel is suggesting that P.M. Harper’s decisions are going in the wrong direction: cutting arts spending rather than developing the arts is the equivalent of eating our children rather than helping them.

What modern social problems do you think should be satirically mocked today?

Chances are, someone’s probably already doing it. For example, a modern-day Jon Swift has entered the blog world. Check out his best of the best list for some modern satire (although I can’t promise his satire necessarily fits the definition given by Harmon and Holman above).

Online Resources:

• Read A Modest Proposal at Project Gutenberg
• Listen to a free audio of A Modest Proposal at Librivox.org
• Read commentary at Wikipedia, A Modest Proposal

If you reviewed A Modest Proposal on your site, please leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

• Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
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• Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott
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Bushman does not omit controversy from Joseph’s life; rather, controversy surrounding Joseph is carefully researched in the context of early 1800s America. As a fellow believer in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church), I readily enjoyed what I felt was a balanced examination a person I consider a prophet in his era. While Bushman’s account is certainly biased toward Joseph Smith as a prophet, I felt it was a fair look at both man and prophet.

Joseph Smith’s World

In his May 2005 lecture at “The Worlds of Joseph Smith” conference at The U.S. Library of Congress, Richard Bushman examined the various histories given to Joseph Smith:

The context in which [Joseph Smith] is placed effects how one sees the prophet. It colors everything about him.

In his biography, Bushman attempts to put Joseph Smith in the cultural context that helped form him in to the man and prophet that he was: the subtitle is “A Cultural Biography of Mormonism’s Founder.”I think he did an excellent job.

The Life (and Controversy) of Joseph Smith

Because Joseph Smith only kept a personal journal for six months, much of what we know is from other’s journals, public reports, and the cultural context of his life. Though he only lived 39 years, Joseph Smith profoundly believed in the revelations he had received. He also lived with an abundance of persecution. (More about Joseph Smith here.)

Revelation and Faith

Joseph Smith was a teenager when, following a personal prayer, he had a vision. Years later, he was led to an ancient record and given the power to translate it, which resulted in the Book of Mormon.

While for Joseph these experiences were calls from God for him to lead, he seldom talked about his visions: he instead emphasized baptism and repentance, among other things. He had boundless hope for personal salvation. One facet of the Mormon religion is the fact that each person is able to receive personal revelation to help them through their lives.

Joseph Smith’s life was formed by what seems to be miraculous religious experiences, and as he said on many occasions,

I don’t blame you for not believing my history[;] had I not experienced it [I] could not believe it myself. (page 551)

He certainly believed he had these experiences: he never doubted himself. Reading his history shows me his optimistic hope.

Persecution for Religion and Politics

When Joseph first discussed his miraculous vision with local church leaders as a teenager, he was scorned and told his vision was of the devil. Thus began a lifetime of persecution, for young Joseph was certain his vision was from God. His family and followers were driven from New York State and later Ohio. In Missouri, Mormons were driven out by mobs. Ultimately, he was murdered in Illinois and the remaining Mormons were driven from the state.

Surprisingly, much of the persecution stemmed from politics. For example, in Ohio, a failed economic cooperative angered the locals; in Missouri, Mormons were northerners settling in a slave state. In Illinois, Mormons sought redress from various political parties, rewarding loyalty to any leader supporting them. Joseph Smith, frustrated by the government’s lack of any redress for the violence against his followers, decided to run for president himself.  The cultural background for persecution was fascinating to discover.

Some persecution was religious discrimination. I also found the cultural rationales for this discrimination interesting.

Polygamy

The Mormons in 1843 Nauvoo, Illinois, could not imagine living in a polygamous society. Bushman did a marvelous job at expressing the shock that this doctrine had on the small community of Mormons. Joseph had doctrinal reasons for instituting the practice, and divine inspiration convinced him it was of God. Personal revelation allowed others to likewise feel divinely inspired, as Bushman showed. Bushman does not apologize for the practice but rather provides a fascinating look at the cultural context.

(While I do believe that Joseph Smith was inspired, I also believe that polygamy practiced today is not; I personally cannot explain why it was necessary to be practiced in Nauvoo in the 1840s. For the church position on polygamy in the past and today, visit the LDS.org Newsroom.)

Unbiased or Not?

Is it possible to provide an unbiased account of a man many consider to be a prophet? Bushman is an expert of Puritan and early United States history as well as a practicing Mormon. In his introduction, he discusses the challenges to writing Joseph Smith’s biography:

… To protect their own deepest commitments, believers want to shield their prophet’s reputation. On the other hand, people who have broken away from Mormonism … have to justify their decision to leave. … For a character as controversial as Smith, pure objectivity is impossible. What I can do is to look frankly at all sides of Joseph Smith, facing up to his mistakes and flaws. … (page xix)

To get inside the movement, we have to think of Smith as the early Mormons thought of him and as he thought of himself – as a revelator. (page xxi)

The Bottom Line

Bushman is a believer in Joseph Smith as a prophet, as am I. Is his history of Joseph Smith biased? Yes, of course. But his history would also be biased if he didn’t believe Joseph Smith was a prophet. As it was, I loved Bushman’s biography of Joseph Smith, and I learned about a man who was certainly not perfect. I appreciate Joseph Smith and his life’s work and sacrifice all the more knowing he’s imperfect.

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling has been widely received in academic circles. I imagine that anyone interested in a well-researched cultural biography of Joseph Smith and the founding of Mormonism would probably appreciate Bushman’s biography. It’s the only one of its kind.

It probably doesn’t exist, but I’m now looking for a balanced biography of Brigham Young. Any recommendations?

If you have reviewed Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling on your blog, please leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

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Why Woman Should Rule the World isn’t just another cliché: rather, in her well-researched social memoir of women, Dee Dee Myers shares what she’s learned about being a woman, both from her experiences as the press secretary to the U.S. President and from a life time of being a woman.  While only 10-15% of her book is memoir, the social history Myers shares and the interviews she conducts with other successful women (in politics and otherwise) support Myers’s argument for why women ruling the world could change the world.

I thought, at first, that it would be hard to engage in a social and historical review of women in leadership, but I was pleasantly surprised. Why Woman Should Rule the World was a quick read and an enlightening book that illustrated how women are different than men – and why those differences should be celebrated, not ignored.

About the Book

Because Myers is not a psychologist or sociologist (she’s political pundit and writer), her book was, I think, delightfully lighter and more approachable than it would have been. It’s not as technical as it could have been, but for that I’m incredibly grateful.

For some reason, I thought that I was going to read a memoir. I don’t usually choose memoirs unless I am already interested in the person writing it. Because I knew Dee Dee Myers’ name from The West Wing* and because I am interested in politics (from a distance…), I was attracted to this book regardless of the “memoir” label. I was surprised to find, however, that Myers’ memoir was not so much memoir as it was overall examination of the state of women in leadership around the world. I believe it is still a memoir in a sense: and yet, it is much more.

Myers organizes her argument under three parts, all of which have some of her experiences interspersed:

• Why Women Don’t Rule the World
• Why Women Should Rule the World
• How Women Can Rule the World

About Women as Leaders

As the first female press secretary to a president (Bill Clinton), Myers learned a lot about what it means to be a woman in the public work force, especially a woman with some degree of power. Much of what she learned was not pleasant. She faced firsthand the discrimination of lower pay for more work; more responsibility without the correlating benefits; and the challenge of speaking up to be heard. People judge a woman differently than they judge a man, and women have to do a lot more to be noticed.

I enjoyed the insights she shared. Myers’ argument is that women should of course be socially equal to men, but because women not the same as men, they need to stop trying to be like them: we should celebrate our strengths. And that is exactly how I feel about being a woman.

In her introduction, she clarifies:

This book is not an attack on men. It’s not meant to demean or marginalize them. … Truly, the list of man’s ( and I don’t mean “mankind’s”) accomplishments is so long and so profound that it seems silly to try to quantify it. But that doesn’t mean the world wouldn’t be better if there were more women in public life. … (page 11)

I didn’t get any sense of “man bashing” in this book; Myers respects the men in her life and those in power. She just thinks things could be nicer with more women leaders around the world.

What Would Be Different?

Here’s a humorous thought for you, courtesy Why Women Should Rule the World:

If the three wise men had been women, they would have asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, brought practical gifts, and there would be Peace on Earth. (page 102)

Now, that sounds cliché: believe me when I say that Myers’ book goes beyond the cliché. In her memoir, Myers shows us why woman can and should be leaders.

And as a woman, I can certainly appreciate her message. I guess I never considered myself a “feminist” until I read this book: she’s put in to words what I’ve always believed about the abilities women inherently have, and I’m all the more proud to say “I am a woman.”

What do you think would be different if women had the power (now or in the past)?

*Myers is quick to point out that it’s not that she is like C.J. Cregg, the fictional presidential press secretary on The West Wing: C.J. Cregg is like Dee Dee Myers.  Since I was only a teenager when Myers was on C-Span and CNN, I admit that I am more familiar with the character C.J. Cregg than I am with Myers. I knew the name “Dee Dee Myers” only because she’d worked as a consultant for The West Wing and therefore she was in the “Special Interviews” section of the DVDs. Oops.

• Nonfiction Five Challenge
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• Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman
• Daughter of Destiny by Benazir Bhutto
• November Month in Review and December Reading Journal
• A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
• Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
• God’s Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane

See, Canadian author Yann Martel (of Life of Pi fame) was watching Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a function and started wondering what the prime minster reads.

I tried to bring him close to me with my eyes. Who is this man? What makes him tick? No doubt he is busy. No doubt he is deluded by that busyness. No doubt being Prime Minister fills his entire consideration and froths his sense of busied importance to the very brim. And no doubt he sounds and governs like one who cares little for the arts. But he must have moments of stillness. And so this is what I propose to do: not to educate – that would be arrogant, less than that – to make suggestions to his stillness.

So Martel sends the Prime Minister a book every two weeks. He writes a very interesting letter with each book explaining the political or emotional reasons why he, Martel, has selected the particular book. I think it’s a fascinating concept. And Martel has selected a fascinating list of books. Visit What is Stephen Harper Reading? for the reading list (updated every two weeks) and copies of Martel’s great letters. Stephen Harper’s office sent a form letter response for the first book only.

Dewey has started a challenge for us to read just two of the books from the list each quarter.

See what I’ve read, with links to any reviews, on this page.

I’m going to keep this challenge easy this quarter. I will probably reread Jonathon Swift’s A Modest Proposal (which I read in school years ago) and probably Ayn Rand’s Anthem (which I read for a book club years ago and which I rediscovered post-move); however, after this review of Animal Farm, I may reread that instead. This will change, of course, if Martel sends a “Christmas-y” book in the coming six weeks; in which case I’ll read that.

Incidentally, what do our presidential candidates read? There is an interesting article in the Sunday New York Times Book Review about presidential reading. Check out the Amazon list of the candidates current reading choices here.

What book(s) would you send your political leader to read?

• Martel-Haper Challenge (2009 3rd Quarter)
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• Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
• A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
• Present and Future Challenges – 2009, 1st quarter
• Anthem by Ayn Rand + A Giveaway

I am not very familiar with the political situation before, during, and after World War II. But after reading the best speeches of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, I am impressed that his powerful, confident speeches were a deciding factor in the perseverance of the United Kingdom through the trying times of World War II. I loved reading his political speeches: though my situation is different, his powerful words buoy me.

I’ve decided read all of the Nobel Prize for Literature winners, a goal I solidified by joining the Read the Nobels challenge. I was surprised to see Winston Churchill’s name on the list of winners. Obviously, I knew the name, but I was not familiar with his writing. I decided to approach his writing firstly through his well-known speeches.

Churchill’s Speeches

Unlike many modern politicians, Sir Winston Churchill had no speech-writing staff: he wrote his own speeches. His secretary claimed,

In the case of his great wartime speeches, delivered in the House of Commons or broadcast to the nation, [Churchill] would invest approximately one hour of preparation for every minute of delivery.”  (Editor’s Preface, xxv)

That means 30 hours of “dictation, rehearsal, and polishing” for a 30-minute speech. Churchill’s care is apparent in his speeches. He has phenomenal control over the English language. I found myself impressed with his powerful words; I want to be a writer like he is! (His writing was much more inspiring to me as a writer then a certain “how to write” book was for me recently.)

History vs. Current Events

Reading political speeches from 50-100 years ago again reminded me, as I’ve mentioned, that I appreciate history much more than current events. I loved the perspective of recent history as I read Churchill’s speeches about the Boer War, World War I, the time between the wars in which Germany began to rearm, World War II, and the beginnings of the Cold War, all speeches he gave from various positions in government.

Being unfamiliar with World War II from the British perspective, I was surprised by the repeated warnings in the 1930s from Churchill, an unpopular Member of Parliament, about the re-arming of Germany. For example, take this beautiful quote, from 31 May 1935:

It would be a folly for us to act as if we were swimming in a halcyon sea, as if nothing but balmy breezes and calm weather were to be expected and everything were working in the most agreeable fashion. By all means follow your lines of hope and your paths of peace, but do not close your eyes to the fact that we are entering a corridor of deepening and darkening danger, and that we shall have to move along it for many months and possibly for years to come … (page 114)

The sense of foreboding is eerie, reading it so many years after the fact.

Giving Hope (Along with Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat)

When war did come, Churchill was thrust into the role of Prime Minster. Rather than saying “I told you so,” as he rightly could have, he instead gave hope through his powerful words. In his first speech to Parliament as Prime Minister on 13 May 1940, his voice is solemn and trembling. As always, he seems to have a little lisp as he speaks. But his dedication to Britain is unwavering, and the hope he instills through his words gave me the chills:

In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at length today … I would say to this House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”

(In a later speech, he adds that he’s also sure he’ll offer a few mistakes along the way too!)

He continues:

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crim. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realized; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.” (emphasis added, page 206; listen here via Online Speech Bank)

A few days later, he speaks publicly via the radio. His voice is upbeat and full or hope and energy. He obviously desires to instill hope in the hearts of those in the midst of war when he calls upon them to

Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict (page 209; listen here)

The front is broken in Belgian, and 338,000 Allied troops are miraculously evacuated. He warns against pride in that matter, for the war would continue until victory, as he’d mentioned before:

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

His speeches, especially in those first years of the war before America joined the fight, are full of such power. These are but a few of his powerful words.

A notable non-war speech was “The Sinews of Peace” given in 1946, which has been named “The Iron Curtain” speech. Again, I was intrigued by the apparent vision Churchill had for what was to come in the future and reading these so many years after the fact was fascinating.

Reading Churchill’s Speeches

I approached Churchill’s speeches through Never Give In!: The Best Speeches of Winston Churchill, which was edited by Sir Winston S. Churchill’s grandson of the same name. You could certainly read the eight-volume set of his complete speeches, but the 500-page volume was sufficient for my needs. I can’t say whether Never Give In! was truly the best representation of Churchill’s speeches, as these are the only ones I’ve read. However, I enjoyed the brief historical context before each speech; it helped me gain the context. I also felt that there were few gaps in the history of Churchill’s career and I liked that. Were these the best of the best? I don’t know. But I certainly enjoyed them.

You can purchase, via Audible, an audio abridgment of this book read by the grandson. Alternatively, many of the well-known speeches are transcribed at The Churchill Centre.

I loved Churchill’s writing. Next, I intend to read his memoirs of World War II, although I’m hesitant to read all six volumes. Churchill abridged it himself into 1,000 pages, but I wonder if that feels complete. Have you read those memoirs?  What do you think?

• Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, abridged by Henry Steele Commager
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When people started mentioning magazines they read for Weekly Geeks, I realized that I used to read The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and other political newspapers and magazines on a regular basis. Since graduation, I haven’t read them. But I greatly enjoyed political subjects: Why don’t I make time to read those things?

For me, this goes back to my ability to read. I’ve lost my attention span and I’m caught up in the quickness of Internet articles: why read the news when I can skim the headlines? It takes a large attention span to read Foreign Affairs, and I was ashamed that it was hard to read through an article by Secretary of State Condelezza Rice at first glance. I had to force myself to concentrate. I certainly shouldn’t find it so challenging: I studied these kinds of things in school!

Something Condelezza Rice wrote stuck with me:

We know that today’s headlines are rarely the same as history’s judgments.

I think my problems with reading newspapers stem from the fact that I’m not interested in “today’s headlines.” I’m much more interested in the big picture, the entire history of these things. My courses were mostly looking at the history of various political issues, not the modern-day situations, although those were an aspect of the courses I took.

I feel the need to read and study the events in the last 5-10 years of politics so I can understand where the world stands now. I feel very clumsy. And yet, I still don’t really look forward to “today’s headlines.” History’s judgments are so much more interesting.

Which do you find most interesting: today’s headlines or history’s judgments?

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• Kissinger by Walter Isaacson
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• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
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Katharine Graham was born to great privilege. Such a statement, however, cannot even begin to encapsulate the spoiled upbringing this woman enjoyed. As I read about her financially privileged birth, I wondered how I could like such a “spoiled brat.” However, Katharine Graham’s life illustrates that monetary security does not guarantee happiness, security, love, health, or an easy life. She grew just as anyone grows.

When Katharine was a 17-year-old boarding school student in suburban Washington, D.C., and the country was in the midst of the Great Depression (1933), her father bought The Washington Post Company (the fifth of five city newspapers and a pitiful, failing wreck) for $825,000. From then on, her life centered on The Washington Post.

At first, Katharine’s involvement with the Post is observational: she studies journalism in college while her father strives make a profit running the newspaper; she marries and her husband, Phil, inherits the newspaper while she raises her children; she remains socially aloof while striving to find a place in society; she aids her husband while he struggles through mental illness. But on her husband’s death in 1963, Katharine Graham becomes the head of the Post and everything in her life changes.

Katharine Graham’s life seems full of contrasts and similarities, any one of which could be an essay by itself:

• Insecure child longing for love versus Insecure wife searching for acceptance
• Doting wife to loving husband versus Supportive wife to mentally ill husband
• Submissive wife (1950s) versus Widowed feminist (1970s)
• Full-time mother (albeit with a nanny) versus Full-time publisher of a growing newspaper
• Insecure publisher (1960s) versus Confident publisher (late 1970s)
• Shy woman versus Outspoken socialite

Within all of these contrasts and similarities are some common themes in Katharine Graham’s life:

• A personal look at women’s changing roles, 1930-1990

Katharine was a women publisher to a large-city USA newspaper in 1963; she was considered a powerful woman. Although Katharine was a bit slow to grasp the concepts of the feminist movement, her careful insights into her own behavior reveal much about the attitudes of the time.

• A personal look at bipolar disorder, its effect on family and friends, and treatment (or lack thereof) in the 1950s and 1960s.

Katharine Graham’s husband suffered from a debilitating bipolar disorder; Katharine’s look at her relationship with him reflects a lot of understanding, unfortunately too late to help Phil Graham. I was amazed at the lack of understanding and the inept attempts to try to help him. What a tragedy that proper help wasn’t to be found!

• A personal look at publishing a daily newspaper, The Washington Post, Watergate, and the printing union strike of the 1970s

Katharine’s life revolves around The Washington Post Company in every way, especially after her husband’s death and her assumption as president and publisher of the company. During the unfolding of Watergate, she or the newspaper were getting threats from the Nixon White House on a daily basis. In addition, while one might have thought that The Washington Post was a well established paper when Watergate happened, it wasn’t. In 1974, after Watergate, the printer’s union went on strike, and The Washington Post could have easily folded. Instead, Katharine Graham learned how to run the presses, and the paper got out every day during the nearly six-month strike. Grahams’ ability to save the paper, despite the pressures, was incredible.

Katharine Graham led an interesting life of contrasts. While I worried her rich childhood meant she had a spoiled, sheltered life, I was surprised by her character and development even during the seemingly insurmountable challenges. Hers was the story of a human.

Katharine Graham’s Personal History is a perfect example of a biography and of an autobiography, and it certainly deserved the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1998. I loved reading this book.

As Katharine reviews her own life, she reveals much about the times in which she lived and the developments that society faced. I learned not just about Katharine Graham but about politics and political figures, publishing and journalism, travel, the life of the rich, history, culture, and the changing face of humankind over time.

To close her review of her life, Katharine wrote:

It’s dangerous when you are older to start living in the past. Now that it’s out of my system, I intend to live in the present, looking forward to the future.

What a lovely sentiment on her own life. She died four years after writing her story, at age 83.

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• Bookworms Carnival: Relationships
• Jane Austen: A Biography by Carol Shields, a Quote Book, and a History of England
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• Golden Legacy by Leonard Marcus
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• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Persepolis 2 seemed to have two parts: one part of Marji living by herself in Austria, skipping classes, doing drugs, and otherwise feeling sorry for herself, and one part Marji returning to Iran and coming to terms with the challenging political situation and social repression that women face in that country. I liked the second part of Persepolis 2 much more than the first because it educated me on the environment women had to live in even in the late 1980s in Iran. While I certainly appreciated the story of her return to Iran and I was somewhat interested in her view of the challenges to a 20-year-old woman educated in the West suddenly thrust back in to a repressive environment, I honestly didn’t like her as a person. I was disappointed because I did like the young girl in Persepolis 1 who thought she was a prophet and longed to find her place with God and in her world. I realize every young teenager makes mistakes and I’m not criticizing that; I’m just sorry I bothered to read about it.

Persepolis 2, as a graphic novel, was intriguing, much like Persepolis 1 was. However, since I would never pick up a memoir of a teenager randomly wandering around Austria, I would never have picked up this book had it not been a graphic novel. When I say I didn’t like it, I say I didn’t like the story (i.e., her life), not that I didn’t like the way it was presented.

Ultimately, Persepolis 2 was not my type of memoir. It may be for you.

Other reviews (from people who probably liked it more than I did):

• The Bluestocking Society
• The Armenian Odar Reads (both books)

If you want, link to your review in the comments and I’ll add it here.

• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
• Why Women Should Rule the World by Dee Dee Myers
• Palestine by Joe Sacco
• Graphic Novels Challenge
• The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelma
• Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle
• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
• March by Geraldine Brooks
• Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman
• Kissinger by Walter Isaacson