Reading not necessarily the 100.

As a person who loves to read I find myself enamored by all sorts of books and I want to sit in the library and read one book after another until I have completed the Mystery section, the fiction section, not so much the romance section, books about dogs, houses, cooking, etc. But two days ago I went into the Children's section. This is one that I had not been into in a long while, since my kids are grown. There were two reasons I went into this section. The first reason is that I was looking for the Wonderful Wizard of OZ by L. Frank Baum. The second reason was that I was looking for Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Why was I looking for these two books? Well, as luck would have it I forgot my top 100 list and I knew that one or both were on the list, I just could not remember which one. They had both copies and I found out it was Alice in Wonderland that was on the list. That was okay because I really wanted to read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Why you may ask would I want to do that? it is I realized that I could not remember reading this book when I was a child. I remember the movie and maybe because of the movie I did not wish to read the book. So I decided to read this book even though it is not one of the 100. Here is what I found out in case you have never read the book, it is similar but also quite different. My curiosity had been roused by the fact that the current movie out talked about China dolls and other things that are not mentioned in the first movie. So I read and I found out that when Dorothy lands in Munchkin land that it is not Glinda the good witch that meets her but her sister the Witch of the North. Glinda is the witch of the South and does not make an appearance until the end of the book. Glinda does not go to the Emerald city to rescue Dorothy but Dorothy must travel to Glinda in the south. ALso the flying monkeys are not the Wicked witch of the West's personal pets, but must do the bidding of the person wearing an enchanted hat. That there are other creatures that we do not meet that are apart of the book, like the china dolls. But the most interesting thing to me is that L. Frank Baum in the introduction to this story tells us why he wrote the story. I will take the liberty to quote that passage, but he did not want to scare children into behaving. "Folk Lore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed children through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Anderson have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all human creations. Yet the old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library: for the time has come for a series of newer "wonderful tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incident devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality: therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident. Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out." So I look at this and I think, is this the beginning of the end. We do not teach morals and now we have children who do not care what they do to others. Not sure, because the book is mild, but the person who made the 1959 movie was certainly trying to scare people, and teach a moral.

Beloved Reviewed

I have just finished the book Beloved by Toni Morrison. I have to say that it was a very informative, descriptive and scary book. The words put up images that I would like to forget, especially the scene in the shed. This gets elaborated on throughout the book, so it starts off with just a suggestion and then little by little the truth is revealed. Other scenes are described and the idea that a ghost could manifest itself into a living breathing person, is somewhat scary. Especially when that ghost is possibly your child. I loved when Paul D arrives and the heat and anger of the ghost is red hot. That the mother just accepts this ghost because it is her child and she is feeling guilty. She does not seem to care about the living child, the one who has stayed with her from birth. But there are lots of stories of mother/ daughter separations in this book. Slavery caused families to be torn apart as soon as the children were of age and sometimes before. But what makes a mother try to kill her children, what is the lesser of the two evils? A very eye opening book. I wish I could shut out some of the scenes.

Remiss

I am afraid I have failed to be an adequate writer or reader for that matter with this blog. But I am reading the book Beloved by Toni Morrison. I have been a little freaked out by a child ghost. Also, I have been writing another blog called The Life of Kai, more frequently. But I plan to finish this book and get back to my goal of reading the 100. If I look at books on this list that I have already read, I would be have found that I have read 48 of the books. Some I will reread, like THE GREAT GATSBY, especially since I re it in high school some years ago. I love to read and that is what I do more than I write. One day I will write an actual story, I will keep you posted on that, then you can critique me.

Catcher in the Rye

I just finished Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. This book was first published in 1945, my edition was from 1999, publishing company Little Brown and Company. J.D. Salinger had several characteristics that make the character Holden Caufield similar to him, in that he did not like the structure of the school life. More information about Mr. Salinger can be found in World Biography online. He lived in NEw York, attended school, was in the service, was a writer and got out of service in 1945. Catcher in the Rye is about a boy named Holden Caufield, he is still in High School but has been farmed out to several schools because though he likes English and writing he just cannot apply himself to the rigorous studying of other subjects. He does not seem to like anyone, using names to describe them as phonies, flits, and other deragatory names. He is not happy with his older brother because he writes movies and he Holden thinks all movie people are phonies, who do not know how to be real. He loved his younger brother who dies at a young age and sends Holden into a tailspin. He loves his younger sister Phoebe and spends his time after bailing out on his school Pency, a few days before school ends for winter break. Well, he was actually kicked out but that was not in effect until after winter break. So Holden bails after an argument with his roommate about a girl that his roommate took out who is actually a friend of Holden's from home. He ends up getting knocked out, and then he leaves, goes on a calling binge and for a high school student a drinking binge. Calling friends or should I say aquintances as holden does not consider anyone a friend. The whole time he is doing this you are constantly hearing his thoughts, mostly all negative, unless he is reminiscing about his brother or thinking about his sister. His one drinking "buddy", who is actually someone who graduated from another school Holden was kicked out of, tells him he should see a psychoanalyst. This book is full of teenage angst and unresolved issues with the death of his brother. I think that is his brother who he felt was perfect had not died Holden might not have had such animosity towards the people who fell short of his expectations. But then again do not all teenagers feel animosity towards others. Good book, pretty current with todays issues.

Books up next

I have just finished a book for book club Gone Girl. This is a psychological thriller that had me guessing what the final outcome would be. There wer some who wanted both characters to have a murder/ suicide just because the Amy and Nick will never have a happy marriage, they will always be constantly watching each other. The combination, like Nick's sister Go is explosive and not in a good way. Many twists and turns and makes you look at your own marriage. It is positively scary that this type of person has a relationship with anyone. I recommend you read it but it is not part of my Reading the 100 list. On that list, however is Catcher in the Rye, but as I said in a previous blog the book The Golden NotebookI will probabky not read yet. I had to take it back to the library today, but will pick it up the next time I go to the library. I have several of the books on Reading the 100 challenge at my home so I will read those first before heading back to the library. MY next non-hundred book will be decided later as I have to decide from several books that I promised myself that I would read.

Main Street complete

I have finished Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. Yeah me. It actually a pretty good book. I guess the best thing it did was present a picture of a small midwest town set around 1916-1920. The people who reviewed the book said that Sinclair Lewis probably started writing this book when he got out of college and finished it when he was older.

I guess this is in reference to the central character Carol who was an idealist. She got out of college ready to change the world, took a library job to change the minds of youth about the value of an education. Was quite bored. She said she would not marry until she reached her goal. Her original goal ws to change a small town into something wonderful. But she changed her mind several times, but keot that in the background. Then she meets Dr. Kennicot, who lives in just the small town she wants to change. The kicker here is that she wanted to change a small town was not happy with the small town she was living in. So here is a potential town to change and she starts off alienatiing everyone. Her husband is none to pleased with her attitude towards the town folk.

The marriage is not working out but how can it when she has no interest what so ever in her husbands interest, not even one thing. She does go through periods of respect for him but those do not last very long. The other thing that she tends to throw over is her desire to make a difference in the town. Instead of sticking to her guns, she drops projects. Her biggest project that she works on all the time is how to escape her husband and this town. Every man that comes into town she pictures a romantic liason. Will he whisk her away? Will she make a difference in his life? She is not a happy person. We get to hear her thoughts quite a bit and I think she could use a little shrink help.

But to be fair, the women are not very accepting of her. Probably because she thinks that they are all stupid. Carol tends to step on toes. She does not try to fit in because she does not like theses women. They are slightly annoying. They believe that they are above everyone But they have been running the town for quite sometime. We also have the small town affairs, the bullies, the busybodies, and just about anyone that you could possibly think was annoying.

She does have children and the end scene was actually kind of interesting because of the reference she made to the year 2000. The descriptions that Sinclair used were very for a better term descriptive. The winter scenes made you think, boy I could use a blanket. The houses were nicely described and I paid close attention to the fact that Carol did inot really like the bungalow style. I thought this was interesting because that was a style that came into being about that time. I would have thought it was a forward thinking idea, but she wanted columns and other over the top decor. She did not appreciate the quiet or simpler things to life.

I said I would compare this to two other books I read: The Secret Lives of Dresses and The Lifeboat. In all three books the central character is a young female. Two of the books are set in the 1920 eara and one is curent day. The women in the 1920's are looking to be strong and independent, with the aid of a man in thier lives. The woman in the The Secret Lives of Dresses is trying to figure out whaere she belongs. She too loks for the strenght of a man. But she is independent and goes for what she wants with some prompting. It is okay for her to be strong, not like in the 1920's where you were expected to get married. The other two woman found some independence from their husbands but you have to say that they were still relient. The girl in the book The Lifeboat, would not have been on the lifeboat if not for her husband cutting a deal. Though unlike Carol, she went after her gentleman because she knew he had money. This was after seeing him in the betrothel section of the paper, thereby destroying a realtionship. When she was in the lifeboat she went with the power, at first a man then the women. She also had to deal with stronger, older women, but she just let her lawyer help her out of a sticky situation.
Carol on the other hand used her husband to get where she thought she wanted to go. Then she leaves him but with his blessing and money to go to DC, towards the end of the book. She would have not been able to do any of that without his help at that time. But she did not really appreciate what he did for her, even to the end of the book. The girl for The Secret Lives of Dresses, stood on her own, had to deal with an Aunt, Uncle and cousin who wanted to strip her of her grandmother's store, but she stood her ground, and with the help of friends, one being a possible boyfriend, she was able to take back the store and find her nitch in life. The other two I do not think will ever be as successful, but that unfortunately was the sign of the times in the early 1900's. Three woman, thrown into making life decisions, some successful, some not.

All I know is that I fall somewhere in between, and I think that is where most of us fall. When I graduated from college I had all sorts of ideals. I was going to find the cure for cancer, I had a plan for when I would get married, when I would have kids and when I would win the Nobel Peace Prize. So I got married, had my kids in the exact time frame that I wanted. It all fell into place, the only thing I have not done is to cure cancer, though I did have cancer and I feel cured. I did not win the Nobel Peace Prize. There will always be people who say no, tell us what to do, think our plans are crazy, but all you need is the support of one person to make you feel invincible. Sure you should feel that way all the time, but we all no that that does not always happen. Having someone in youor corner whether male or female just makes life a little easier. The sufferagets found this to be true that is why they formed an organization, so they would not stand alone. All these women needed a support group, some got it others did not. Great story, really made me think.

Almost done

I am almost finished Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. I lost it and finally realized the last time that I had read it was while in bed. Apparently, in my sleep I knocked it off the table and forgot where it was. But today is cleaning day and I looked under my bed, heavens, and there it was still with the bookmark in place thankfully.

I do want to make a comment about the book. I have lived in DC and Norfolk, VA and thought those were large places, similar to this stories heroine, Carol Kennicott in her town of St. Paul, Minnesota. When my husband finished hi s obligation to the services we moved to a small town. I feel for this character who finds herself under the microscope of all the people in town. In DC or Norfolk, you can go everywhere without running into someone you know, just like our character states in her circumstances for moving from St. PAul to a small prairie town. In my small town, my husband was wearing sweats when he went to the store and ran into several people who asked if he was feeling okay. Everwhere we go we run into someone accessing us and this is what happens in this book.

But in the same token, Carol, has judged these people as being inadequate because they are not like big city folk. This is what she wanted to do was to change a small town into a large town, to redesign the city. I am not sure what she thought she would have to do to do this but there are many lessons in this book.