and the rivers ran red…

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a difficult book to describe accurately. Calling it “Western noir” is accurate, but misleading. At times it made me chuckle, at others I recoiled in horror. It’s really very dark, but somehow not depressing. Most of the time I was rooting for one, if not both, of the Sisters brothers, and though this may be a normal attitude toward the protagonist of the average novel, it feels very odd when all along you know your “hero” is a hired hit man with a very serious anger problem. He may be conflicted about his job, but that doesn’t keep him from actually doing it. This is definitely a book meant to make you question your beliefs about human nature.

The blending of mysticism and realism fascinated me. It perfectly captured the feel of the Old West from my modern perspective – spell-casting and scientific advancements both felt natural to the storyline and the setting.

I don’t think The Sisters Brothers would be everyone’s cup of tea, but I highly recommend it as an easy and entertaining read, though not at all a light one.

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in book heaven

People probably get tired of me rambling on and on about how much I love the library, but I don’t care. When I step outside those doors with an armful of books, I glow. I am hopelessly in love, and I must gush.

In my mind, anyplace that is full of books is the most beautiful place in the world. When you go there, they give you things to edify and entertain FOR FREE! If there is any subject ever mentioned in the whole of human history that you would like to know more about, you only have to ask. If they don’t have anything relevant, well, that’s what inter-library loan is for.  Americans are so blessed to have these incredible public institutions always at our fingerprints.

The only funny thing is that I have months-long streaks where I don’t even think about the library, let alone go. Part and parcel of my short-attention-span ways. But I always return, eventually, to soak up the bliss.

My selections from the last trip crack me up.

Thanks for not judging me, library staff, when I checked out two post-apocalyptic novels, a book full of tips for becoming thrifty, a Swedish language textbook, a Swedish language CD set, a guidebook to Sweden, and DVDs of two different TV series by creator extraordinaire Joss Whedon (I swoon).

Can’t wait to go back for more!

a tale of big bad america

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Technically I didn’t finish this book. I got ever-so-slightly more than halfway in before I finally surrendered. If I had continued, at the pace I was going it would have been another year, at best, before I conquered the second half. That is to say, this book, though worthwhile, is not really a dynamic read.

The author focuses exclusively on the people and stories that conventional history books overlook, and reveals some shocking truths. The early chapters were for me the most compelling. Yes, we’ve all heard (hopefully) that Christopher Columbus mistreated the natives he encountered, that slaveowners mistreated their slaves, that 150 years ago everyone mistreated women and the poverty-stricken, but it is a different thing to have that reality all laid out for you in great detail, with historical documents to back it up.

That being said, this is basically a textbook, not a pleasure read, and it is a very, very, very one-sided textbook, at that. Zinn has quite a soft spot for labor unions, socialists and anarchists, and no sympathy at all for imperialists, businessmen, or basically anyone who has ever been in a position of great power in America, and he tries to beat that point of view into the reader’s head, too. It got a little old.

I would encourage anyone to at least pick up this book and skim through a couple chapters. You can learn a lot from it, but don’t be surprised if getting to the interesting bits is a bit of a slog.

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the end of an age in middle earth

The Return of the King, book three of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is absolutely wonderful.  But if you read it, be prepared to be depressed. Overwhelming hopelessness is a not-so-subtle theme throughout the whole thing.  The beauty of it is that, for the most part, the characters keep striving on even when they know exactly how impossible are the tasks that they face.  It’s nice to read about straightforward heroes – and villains – in modern literature.

I enjoyed reading about the plight of Eowyn – at last, a female who actually does something! 

Although apparently the actions she takes are mostly of the suicidal variety, and Tolkien seems to indicate that her place is at home, doing “women’s work”, not out at battle.  I’m torn on that one.  On one hand, she did indeed have a responsibility to shepherd the people while the king was away, but personally, I wouldn’t have liked being patronized and told to go hide in a cave while all the cool people ran off to do heroic deeds, either.  Still, I appreciate the fact that all the men involved in this decision (Theoden King, Eomer, and Aragorn) truly wished only for her safety.

I was torn again when it came to her love story.  My first inclination was to delight in a happy, romantic ending.  However, angst makes for more interesting reading, generally.  I felt a lot more for her character while she was moping around like Eeyore than I did when she, in two pages, transformed into that la-di-dah Princess Sunbeam type character.  The ends got tied up just a bit too neatly for my taste.

I don’t feel the need to say much about the battles, other than that they were enthralling.

My heart was breaking for Sam and Frodo while they trudged through Mordor.  It was interesting to see Sam become more and more the hero of the story.  We have no way of knowing if Frodo could have succeeded without him in the end, but it certainly seems unlikely.  Gollum played his part well, too.  You have to pity the creature but always despise him at the same time.  I was a little disappointed that Frodo couldn’t destroy the ring of his own free will (guess hobbits aren’t quite as tough as they say!) but it absolutely worked out for the best to have Gollum give up his life for it.

All in all, it was an excellect conclusion to an excellent epic tale.

dos torres

It’s no big surprise, considering how much I liked the first installation, that I also very much enjoyed the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which is titled The Two Towers.  It moves the story along dramatically.  You can actually feel the tension mounting with each page.  Somehow Tolkien is able to create a plethora of very exciting action scenes, while still making it clear that these are all just minor happenings compared to what lies ahead.  You know you better brace yourself for the moment when the true war breaks out!

The most fun part of the story revolves around the Ents and their angry trees. 

How brilliant he was to create a creature that is completely like a tree and still quite human!  It sounds as though speaking to an Ent would be utterly boring, but I was nothing but entertained by reading about them.  Furthermore, in fairy stories it is always the creatures in the forest that a person has to be afraid of, but now you see that the forest itself is a power not to reckoned with.  The Ents do a lot of damage at Isengard, and it’s cool to see their extreme power at work there, but I find the trees much more foreboding at the Deeping Coomb – a sudden dark shadow that destroys hundreds of Orcs in a fashion left entirely to the imagination.  Creepy!

However, I think my absolute favorite aspect of this book is that it reveals so much of each character.  You learn what hardy stuff Merry and Pippin are made of when they are kidnapped by orcs and dragged off to the evil-powers-that-be.  You empathize with Aragorn and the terrible choices he must face as a leader, both of the fellowship and the gathering army.  You come to understand the true greatness of Gandalf, without losing sight of his innately human qualities.  You even get a sneak peek into the convoluted, struggling, pitiable mind of Gollum.

But to my mind the most wonderful character studies are found in Sam and Frodo.  You expect greatness out of wizards and warriors, yet these two hobbits have as much, if not more, of it than anyone else.  They are servant and master, hero and sidekick, but above all, friends.  Frodo may have the weight of the world on his shoulders but Sam does everything in his power to ease that burden.  It is quite beautiful.