Oliver Twist, Of Mice and Men

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Finally. I've been reading this for such a long time. I made the mistake of cracking an intense book right around the Christmas season. Mustering up the time and the motivation to read more complex sentences and descriptions was not easy. But I just finished it this morning, and I'm very happy about that.

Dickens has always intimidated me. He's one of those authors you hear about and you know adults read his work. My mom has a set of Dickens books that are leather bound and look so... scholarly. I opened one one time (I think Tale of Two Cities), and couldn't (and didn't want to) make it past the first page. I was too bogged down by what I didn't understand.

Unbelievably, I adored Oliver Twist. Maybe I'm a little older and a little wiser, but Dickens descriptions are point on and contain a lot of depth. For as much that actually happens in the story, plot-wise, I think there are 2 and a half times as many descriptions, which absolutely make his writing.

Besides the fact that it's an endearing story, and you just feel for Oliver, somehow the story is tightly woven together, which don't realize until the very end of the story. Even after having to concentrate so hard on all of the words and what they mean (which, at times, was difficult for me), and feeling a little lost in terms of plot, I was still hanging my mouth open at some of the revelations toward the finale.

As an aside: When a book is called a "thrift edition", and only cost $4 (even in Korea, where most English books cost a lot of money), don't buy it. It probably has some words misspelled, and if you don't know a lot of the words anyway, it confuses things. You might think it's a new word you just don't know, but it's probably misspelled. Aye.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
More on a Steinbeck kick, as a try to read all of his works. I remember reading this story in high school, and liking it. I also remember how the high school boys snickered because the story mentions Weed, California.

Nice short story. Steinbeck is good at developing characters, and I admire his gentle way with awkward situations and the way you feel for all of their characters in their own unique situations. Steinbeck is about working class America, and I like that.

A Few to Get Started

These are some that I've read over the past couple of months.

Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck
I should have realized from the size of this book that only so much could be accomplished, but I still hyped myself up for something a little more profound. I loved the premise, and there are some really sharp observations that are still true to this day, but I ended the book feeling a somewhat short changed. But, I guess a guy can only cover so much of America in so many days.

Steinbeck does, however, have a gift for characterizing places and feelings that match perfectly to the type of people who exist there. Not only can he paint a vivid picture of a redwood forest that makes you feel incredibly small, but he can tell you all about the natural instincts of a Texan. His close proximity and outsider's objectivity to a civil rights moment he caught is telling of the differences Americans have. Worth the read, but don't expect an overly thorough portrait of America as a whole.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
I'll admit that I wanted to read this because I had just gotten done reading a biography of Harper Lee that talked a lot of her contribution to the investigation and story of the small town murders. I ripped through this book because of its combination of winning qualities. It's a true story which makes it interesting in its own right. Beyond that, the true story involves an extraordinary event (the killings of a family) in a very ordinary setting (rural Kansas, late 1950s). While reading, I had to keep reminding myself that what I was reading was real.

It's a captivating read not only because you want to know who committed the crime, but you want to know why (there seemed to be no motive), and you want to know everything you can about all of the characters involved, even the citizen bystanders in the town. Capote wrote a book that reads like a fiction crime novel, but could only be a true story.

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Conner
Okay, so going into this one I thought it was a no-brainer. I would definitely like it because of two things: mid twentieth century (check) and southern (check). But, my instincts failed me. Now, I've told this to a few people and they acted astonished. I don't think I have much tolerance for characters that wonder, seemingly without a purpose. When they end up here, and then there, and then again another place, all during the story, with no plot that I can distinguish, I get frustrated.

I also think that maybe I didn't quite understand the context of the character. I didn't understand his plight or his point, and when I don't understand, I get bored and don't care. I hear I should read some more O'Conner. We'll see.

She Can Read

This idea occurred to me today while I was browsing through a bookstore - all of the books I want to read, and how quickly I forget which books I have read. I thought of how ordinary and average I am, but how I have not read many "classics" as my mother would deem them, or even a lot of the "must reads" of this time period.

A little background is this: I was always big on reading when I was a child. I remember a million trips to the library with my Grandma when I was younger. After I worked my way through the current Babysitters Club selection, I was on to what my Grandma was reading, which mostly included Lillian Jackson Braun (of The Cat Who... fame), and Maeve Binchy (of Circle of Friends fame). I still read quite a bit through high school and I remember falling in love with many stories that I read on my own, which included the aforementioned Binchy book. I hated assigned reading in high school, but I distinctly remember the anxious and trapped feeling that Poe's The Pit and Pendulum gave to me as I sat in Ms. Lathrop's classroom.

When college happened, so did a lot more assigned reading, and pleasure reading often got pushed to the sidelines, only making its way out for school vacations. But during this time I started discovering a lot more than I had before. One American Literature class, I believe, set me off on a search for those "classics". After reading a few excerpts I then started reading Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, and fell in love. My favorite kind of literature is probably mid-twentieth century American. I count To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee as one of my favorites, along with East of Eden by Steinbeck.

So, that's the long of it, and the short of it is that I want to keep better track of what I read and I want to talk about it. My reviews will always be honest, even if they don't match what critics and fans says ("You can't possibly think that of Flannery O'Conner!"). This is what I like, and what I think, which is why I made a blog for it. Happy reading.