Distractions and Namelessness - Not a Good Reading Combination

Currently Reading: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Apparently I went through a bit of a stretch during which the books I read left little to no impression on me. However, I’m not sure it’s fair to say that this is purely a reflection on the novels. After all, I read The Old Man and the Sea in a desperate attempt to reach my February goal of four books for the month and then my two subsequent books, The Red Badge of Courage and On the Road, were read in the midst of my Australia trip frenzy. For the first time in a while, my life was actually more interesting than those of the characters I was reading about. Exciting and glorious as this change was for me personally, it has been a rather negative development for both my reading and blogging habits.

I mean, how could Jack Keruoac’s rather redundant journey back and forth and back and forth across the United States possibly compare with spelunking in the Jenolan Caves? Could I really be expected to be more interested in Henry Fleming’s cowardly actions in The Red Badge of Courage than in my cruise on the Great Barrier Reef, complete with an introductory scuba dive?

I think it’s reasonable to say that my lack of interest in these novels was only about 30% due to the actual writing and stories. The other 70% was purely distraction.

All this being said, though, I’m not sure I would put The Red Badge of Courage at the top of my favorite books list even if I read it with laser focus.

The story follows a young private, Henry Fleming, who joins the Union army during the Civil War, imagining that the glory of battle awaits him and he’ll have a chance to show what a manly, brave hero he is. Instead, (spoiler alert) he runs away from his first skirmish. After wandering around, encountering other soldiers and even watching one of his friends become delirious from his injuries and die, Fleming eventually rejoins his regiment. In the final battle of the novel, Henry becomes the hero he desired to be when he refuses to let the colors of his army fall even after the previous flag-bearer is killed.

Stephen Crane very effectively shows the true ugliness of war, rather than the romantic image of it. He demonstrates through Henry that not all moments of battle are moments of glory. These soldiers are simply men, who get scared and injured and even die, all for the sake of some higher-ranking soldier’s purpose. Crane shows how most men do not end up with their names in the history books, but are rather sacrificed as faceless, nameless pawns in a game of chess.

The problem for me, though, was that Crane did this last part too effectively. He chose to barely ever mention characters by name, instead referring to Henry almost exclusively as “the youth” throughout the novel (I had to look up Henry’s name before writing this post, that’s how little it’s mentioned). Each soldier then becomes barely different from the next and they almost cease to become individuals. It’s an incredibly powerful way to highlight how this is the case for soldiers in war, but it backfired a bit for me. By having almost all of the characters become an amorous blob of soldier, I found it very hard to get invested in anyone. It was much harder to care for Henry when I often couldn’t tell when he was being mentioned or not. Again, a very powerful implication of the ability of war to strip away a person’s identity, but made for slightly less interesting reading.

Again, it very well could have been that I just was far more interested in petting a koala…

My Own Marlin Fight - Finally Writing This Blog Post

Currently Reading: The Once and Future King by T. H. White

It absolutely figures that I would write a post bragging about my blogging consistency and then go radio silent for over a month.

I don’t even have a good excuse. I just haven’t been motivated to write, especially not about The Old Man and the Sea. So I apologize that this may not be one of my best posts.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t dislike The Old Man and the Sea. I just didn’t have any strong opinion of it or lasting impression. I attribute this to two facts: First, the book I read before this was Madame Bovary, of which you may know I had a very strong opinion, thus making any impression from the next book instantly wane in comparison. Second, I zipped through The Old Man in the Sea in one day. In the same way that one can devour a meal, finish, and then realize he didn’t really taste a single bite he ate so quickly, I finished this book and realized I didn’t really digest it.

Add to this the fact that Ernest Hemingway and I have had a fairly rocky relationship. He’s famously concise, able to strip the English language down to its core and let its raw power shine through. However, in my past experiences with him, I’ve found that he’s often too concise, expecting his readers to make crazy leaps to get to the conclusions he wants them to make. Thus, I often miss the main point.

It’s created quite a challenge when it comes to writing a blog post about it.

It feels fitting, though, that writing a post about this old man’s days-long struggle with a giant marlin has become an equally lengthy challenge for me.

While this quick book is chock full of symbolism and metaphors about religion and life, I’m taking a cue from Hemingway and opting for brevity, focusing on the most impressive part of the story from my perspective: the old man’s strength.

Despite the 85-day streak without a single fish, the old man still makes the solitary trek out into the water to make another attempt. Then when he does manage to catch a fish that’s bigger than his own boat, he’s not discouraged by its size or strength or determination. Instead, he fights with equal determination. For days. He has incredible resolve and keeps battling for this prize, even when he realizes he won’t be able to bring it back to shore to be of any use.

But to me, what’s even more impressive is his physical strength because damn! This man is supposed to very elderly and I know some older men who are still fit, but I can’t imagine one that could do what Hemingway’s old man does. He’s literally dragged by an 18-foot marlin for days, never able to let up on his grip or relax his pull without the loss of the fish, not to mention the rope digging into his back and hands. And he still hangs on! To me, who can barely manage a push-up, this old man has super-human strength!

Who cares about the message about life and religion – that’s what I find most fascinating about The Old Man and the Sea.

Again, it’s a quick read and the story hasn’t really stuck with me. It didn’t enrage me like Madame Bovary nor did it rock me like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But I’ve got to hand it to Hemingway. He really manages to squeeze an awful lot into his very short sentences.

One Year Later…

Currently Reading: The Once and Future King by T. H. White

I’m not usually one to stick to long-term projects.

I’m the queen of the New Year’s resolution that lasts for two weeks before I relapse. I go through spurts of being a work out junky before I find my butt right in front of the TV again. I constantly start projects, lose momentum halfway through and then find myself unable to pick the project up again.

It’s not something I love about myself, but I admit that I have all the best intentions with pretty lousy follow through when it comes to projects and goals.

However, today marks a pretty big event in the saga of Meredith’s history of zero-follow-through.

Because today is the one-year anniversary of when I started Novel Ideas!

Which is why I’ve decided to toot my own horn a little bit in this post.

During the past year, I have written 29 blog posts (30 counting this one) and read 24 books. Of those 24 books, 18 of them were on my Reading List.

For the person with the scrapbook with only two pages worth of pictures from a vacation I took almost eight years ago; the person whose room is full of corners of organization from that one day I felt motivated; the person with stacks of Thank You cards I’ve never filled out, let alone sent; the person with diaries with opening entries in January and ending entries in March of the same year, THIS IS A BIG DEAL!

I was fairly proud when I started my blog because, as I mentioned in my first post, I had toyed with the idea for a while, but struggled to find the courage and resolve to actually begin. However, I’m so much prouder that I’ve actually managed to keep up with it! And pretty consistently as well. While I may have averaged only about two posts per month, I’ve only had one month during which I didn’t post at all! Again, another huge accomplishment for me!

Additionally, I’m proud that I set two short-term blog related goals for myself in the past year and actually completed both of them! This is especially impressive for the November challenge of nine blog posts in one month. I absolutely expected that I would fall short and post the ninth in December. But no! I did it!!

I am disappointed that I haven’t made a bigger dent in my reading list and that I’m currently behind in blog posts for the books I’ve read. But overall, I can’t help feeling pretty satisfied with the progress I’ve made. I feel empowered and want to keep setting goals for this blog.

However, I’m still not confident in how good this newfound follow-through is so I think I’ll skip setting any goals for my next year of blogging.

But maybe I’ll actually go finish that scrapbook…

Madame Blah-vary

Currently Reading: On the Road by Jack Kerouac

WARNING!!!: This post contains MAJOR spoilers!!!

Waiting this long to write this blog post about Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary may have been both a great and terrible decision.

It wasn’t an entirely intentional decision. After spending a month focusing on reading and then spending two glorious, adventure-filled weeks in Australia, writing blog posts was not high on my list of priorities for most of the last two months. However, I did force myself to wait to write this post in the sense that I refused to allow myself to skip over the books I read before Madame Bovary in order to get to this post.

It was a struggle to do so, though, because I seriously wanted to just explode my feelings about this book all over the place!

And I actually did to anyone and everyone who would listen for weeks after finishing this book. It prompted tirades that rivaled the ones caused when Sybil died on Downton Abbey – which still pisses me off, by the way. I can actually feel my body temperature rising while I think about both…

Which is part of why I think it was a great idea to wait to write this post. I’m fairly certain that in my state of intense frustration and passionate disgust, I probably would have been incapable of writing even a slightly coherent post. Now that I’ve had almost two months to cool off, I’m hoping I will be able to describe my reaction more clearly and calmly.

This may have been a bad idea, though, only because I know that I enjoy reading rant posts more than calm ones. Hopefully this will still be entertaining. The bubble of anger stirring in my stomach as I write this introduction is probably a solid sign it will at least be interesting.

I really hope that there was a lot lost in the translation of this novel, which was originally written in French (in case you couldn’t tell from the very French names of the title character and the author), because if that’s not the case, I truly cannot understand why anyone has or will ever like this book. It has the least likable cast of characters I’ve ever encountered. Everyone is just so freaking obnoxious and this is beyond true of our leading lady.

For the record, I really did try to find Madame Emma Bovary’s redeeming qualities. I really tried to feel the sympathy for her that the author so badly wants us to feel, but I just couldn’t.

Because my God! Madame Bovary is a piece of work. She’s a mess of manic depression and self-involvement with ideas of passion and love that would nauseate a high school girl. Her actions are completely self-destructive, but apparently that’s not enough for her (fitting since she’s never satisfied). Nope, Madame Bovary feels the need to become such a force of destruction that she manages to ruin pretty much everyone else’s lives in the process of ruining her own. All for the sake of pursuing some unrealistic notion of passion that she could never hope to find, especially because she doesn’t have enough depth of personality to feel on the levels she wants to. She’s a petulant, awful, selfish, spoiled idiot and I found her unbearable!

Given that she was the title character, you could see how this would make for a less than pleasant reading experience.

It didn’t help matters that the supporting cast was comprised of more repulsive characters. Everyone was annoying. Everyone!

The only character that was even somewhat likeable was the practical Charles Bovary, our oh-so-charming protagonist’s husband. He truly loves Emma – God only knows why! – and he does everything in his power to make her happy, a goal he will never achieve because Emma is eternally unhappy. He’s a solid husband and father, basically just doing the best he can with what he has. His practicality is especially refreshing given his wife’s tendency to be the queen of Fantasyland.

He puts up with all of Emma’s crap, always believing in her (completely fictional) goodness, only to have her completely screw him over in the end.

Madame Bovary spends the whole novel having not very subtle affairs and spending money she and her husband don’t have to finance both the affairs and an expensive, unnecessary lifestyle. Eventually, she runs her family so far into debt that the only way out is to beg for money from anyone she can, including her former lover, a scene that laughably ends with Emma refusing to put out for money because she’s suddenly so moral and then accusing her former lover of being selfish.

Um, Pot, I’d like you to meet Kettle.

In a chaotic whirlwind of self-pity, Madame Bovary decides there’s no way to fix this tremendous mess she’s created (surprise, surprise) so of course the only course of action is to kill herself.

Sure. That’s the best answer to your problems. That will make them all go away… for you.

Because the problems don’t disappear themselves. Instead, they become Charles’s and her daughter’s problems.

So after years of putting up with Emma’s fits and ridiculous requests and terrible motherly instincts, Charles and his daughter end up completely destitute. Then, as if this isn’t enough, Charles finally finds the stash of letters from Madame Bovary’s lovers, discovering what a sham his life has been and just how awful his wife truly was.

For all these reasons, I find Charles the most sympathetic character.

However, he is only the most appealing of an awful selection. It’s like picking between STDs.

Because Charles Bovary is also an idiot; a spineless moron who goes from being controlled by one odious woman to another. So many issues in this novel could have been resolved if Charles had just grown a backbone and told his wife to think about someone other than herself for a change. UGH!

In the interest of an attempt at a fair, well-rounded view on this book, I guess you can argue that its merit is that Flaubert manages to get you interested in the lives of the most repulsively obnoxious characters ever created. I read somewhere that Madame Bovary is meant to be a satire, criticizing the lavish living style of the French bourgeoisie and maybe, maybe I could buy into that reading and find the merit in the novel that way, but I’m still not 100% sold that it really is a satire because Flaubert tries very hard to make Emma sympathetic..

And even if Madame Bovary is a satire, it is a long-ass satire! I don’t understand how someone can enjoy reading about completely repugnant characters for so long. Maybe some people find it funny? I really just don’t know.

In short, I’d suggest you skip this one. Unless you really enjoy unbelievably detailed descriptions of clothes because then you and Flaubert will get along great.

A Crazy Good Book - Emphasis on Crazy

Currently Reading: On the Road by Jack Kerouac

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a book of contradictions.

The supposedly deaf main character hears more than anyone else.

The caring, smiling nurse with a sensual body is actually a sadistic tyrant who does everything in her power to never appear as a sexual being.

The therapy sessions to create a sense of trust amongst the men actually encourage them to fink on each other and shame each other into total isolation.

The line between the sane and insane is consistently blurred, as the people in charge repeatedly seem crazier than the men they are meant to be treating.

And the aggressive, swindling con man who lies his way into the insane asylum to avoid being a prison laborer, who only seems to care about himself, turns out to be the only one willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of giving the men on the ward their sense of humanity back.

It’s a short book that takes on so much and it has struck me to my core in both an awful and a wonderful way.

This novel is a bleak look of how a person can be broken down, almost methodically into a shell of a human – a scared, sack of flesh and fog, too beaten to even have the strength or courage to laugh. And yet, it is also a hopeful, sympathetic look at how any “crazy” person can be recovered by just being treated like a man; by being shown compassion and encouragement rather than being treated like a sick, damaged sub-human, only good for being poked and prodded like an animal lined up for slaughter.

It was the most bizarre yet beautiful mix of make-your-skin-crawl horror, make-you-want-to-give-up-on-people sadness, and make-you-actually-laugh-out-loud humor.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a book of contradictions. But in the end, my reactions came to one harmonious conclusion:

I absolutely loved this book. If you haven’t read it, you really should.

Reading Challenge: The Results

Currently Reading: The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

So the short month of February has come to a close and March is already trucking along at a terrifying pace. The shamrocks, leprechauns and excessive amounts of green have quickly replaced the red hearts, cupids and excessive amounts of pink; the population anxiously – and impatiently – awaits the Groundhog’s prediction of early spring to come to fruition; and the sun is beginning to push its way into longer and longer days.

It is the end of the shortest – and yet somehow the longest – month, and so too is it the end of my blog reading challenge.

It occurred to me that with my last challenge, the results were readily known. It was easy to know whether or not I failed because the nine products of the challenge were publically posted. However, this reading challenge of reading four books in the month of February produced results that were off (the computer) screen. And as I’m sure you’re all just dying to know all about my reading habits, I thought I should perhaps dedicate a short blog post to the results.

Plus, this way I get the satisfaction of saying:

I DID IT!!! J

That’s right! I read four books in February! Although, I didn’t exactly stick to the pace of reading one book a week. In fact, I wonder a little bit whether or not I should consider this challenge successfully completed because I feel I may have cheated a little. After all, I started my first book (The Return of the King) two days before January ended and the last book I read was The Old Man and the Sea, which took all of 24 hours to finish. However, I’m considering the challenge a victory because I did make a small dent in a fifth book (the one I’m currently reading) before February passed into March.

In case you’re wondering what books made the reading list – and what books you can expect posts about in the coming weeks – I’ve listed them below.

1. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

3. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

4. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

I really enjoy setting these personal goals related to my reading and writing so I expect this won’t be the last. If you have any suggestions of reading or writing challenges I might take on, please let me know!

You Never Get Over Your First Love – Too Bad Mine is Fictional

Currently Reading: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Full disclosure: I got this idea from an article someone posted on Facebook from a site called Hello Giggles. If you’d like to read that article, I’ve included the link below:

http://hellogiggles.com/literary-crushes-objectifying-the-men-of-books

In the Hello Giggles article, the author describes all the literary men she has crushes on, including such dashing figures as Mr. Darcy and Mr. Rochester as well as some slightly more unorthodox love interests like Wolverine from the X-men comic strips.

So this article got me thinking. I’ve long known that fictional men – both in literature and in film – have essentially ruined my chances at being satisfied with a real-life relationship. They are dreamy, intelligent and strong. Furthermore, they always know just what to say or do to make the heroine – and the reader – swoon in a way that no real person ever possibly could. 

But who, specifically, got the ball rolling and set the bar too high?

I started going over all my favorite romance stories in my head, trying to decide which ones I thought were the greatest; which men were the ones I wanted to leap off the page and carry me off into the sunset. Naturally, some of the men on the Hello Giggles list popped into my head. I mean, what woman isn’t in love with Mr. Darcy? And I’ve already explained how I want a man to love me the way Mr. Rochester loves Jane Eyre in my post about that book.

I thought of some more obscure love stories, like the one between Daine and Numair in the Tortall books Wildmage series (books by Tamora Pierce that are not widely known but are intensely loved by its followers). Their first kiss was a long awaited scene for me, as the two maintained a platonic relationship for the majority of the four-book series, and I remember repeatedly reading it as an adolescent.

As I went through all these men trying to piece together my own list of literary crushes, I realized that I loved them, but only with their heroine. Although I love Mr. Rochester for the way he loves Jane Eyre, he’s too rough around the edges for me. I’m elated every time Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy end up together, but I wouldn’t want to marry Mr. Darcy myself (I know. I may have to give up my second X-chromosome for that confession).

Over and over, I really looked at each of my literary dream men and came to the same conclusion. Out of all these handsome, brave, and romantic men, the only one with whom I couldn’t find a fault is the first one who popped into my head; practically the first romantic hero I ever encountered:

I am and always will be in love with Prince Charmont from Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted.

Yes, that is a children's/young adult book.

But I can't help it! I will always want a man like Prince Charmont, aka Char. He’s gentle and kind yet strong enough to fight trolls. He’s brave and diplomatic, considerate and even-tempered - all the perfect traits for the leader of a kingdom. However, what makes Char my one true literary love is that underneath all his properness, he’s still just a kid at heart. 

I desperately want a man who knows how to be an adult in the right situation, but will still use his buttons as a trail when we explore an abandoned castle; a man who will slide down a stair banister with me, catch me at the bottom and then cry, “Again!” I love Char for his eagerness to laugh and to make others laugh. 

I also love Char for writing letters. I’m sure it’s just another indication of my obsession with words, but I love that he takes the time to write, sharing his days, thoughts, and faults in detail, things I can barely get some guys to tell me, let alone commit to paper.

So no matter what else happens, I will never get over my first fictional love. I will always dream of receiving a letter that ends:

“Love (it is such a relief to pen the word!), love, love – Char” (pg. 182).