Island by Aldous Huxley

So my good friend Peter says to me, he says, “I’m reading Island right now. You have to read it.” He thought it was amazing, and being part of the My Favorite Book is Brave New World Club, I took his advice seriously. I told my book club partner about it, and we read recently read it—and discussed it to near-death.

The thing with Island is, it’s sold as a novel—but it’s a half-assed novel, if you want the truth. The plot and character development are super-thin. But the ideas? Oh, they’re grand. Many of our book club members hate-hate-hated the book, because they just couldn’t get into the narrative. However, once we talked about it, they realized it wasn’t “a bunch of hippie bullshit”—it is incredibly thought-provoking and amazing for discussion. But as a summer read? Not that hot. I had an enjoyable experience with it because I read it as a philosophical treatise: I used a ton of Post-It flags and wrote notes on the back flap to provoke my thought. (Confession: I’m a nerd, so I do that any time a read a book, regardless of genre or topic. Shhh.) Knowing that I would be discussing this book with a group of smart people made the reading easier.

It’s not horribly written, mind you. Yes, Huxley’s ideas are far more grand that his writing, but he isn’t horrible at it. This book just disappointed a lot of people who were expecting a story. Another reason I enjoyed it immensely is it fits in my liberal world view. I agreed with much of what Huxley posited. So what, exactly, is it about?

Plot: this guy, Will Farnaby, is a journalist hoping to facilitate a dirty deal between his rich boss and a small island, Pala, over oil. His boss is hoping for exploitation, whereas Will is just thinking about the paycheck. It was serendipity when he found himself crashed on the island and taken care of by its inhabitants. This island is the namesake of the book. It is also Huxley’s idea of a utopia. As Will’s health improves he becomes more interested in how Pala works. He is the Skeptical Outsider finding it tough that things really work here; he just wants to find out who is in charge and exploit them. By the end, however, he’s bonded with the residents and drank their semi-Buddhist/Tantric Kool-Aid.

That’s the gist of the plot. Not too much more intrigue than that—there is some political intrigue, but it, altogether, adds up to about ten pages. Most of the character development results from explaining how people handle emotions—mostly pain—in this utopia. It boils down to “mind over matter,” if you must know. Psychology, education, population (control), consumerism, religion and drug policy are all Huxley’s targets. I don’t want to spoil it all should you read it. But here’s your warning: if you aren’t too socially liberal you will have a hard time with this. As a fawning fangirl I agreed with a lot. Not all. Having discussed it in book club, I don’t have it in me to say much now. I will leave you with some choice quotes, however.

On sex (89):

“Maithuna,” she answered gravely, “is the yoga of love.”
“Sacred or profane?”
“There’s no difference.”
“That’s the whole point,” Ranga put in. “When you do maithuna, profane love is sacred love.”
“Buddhatvan yoshidyonisansritan,” the girl quoted.
None of your Sanskirt! What does it mean?”
“How would you translate Buddhatvan, Ranga?”
“Buddhaness, Buddheity, the quality of being enlightened.”
Radha nodded and turned back to Will. It means that Buddhaness is in the yoni.”

On Family; everyone belongs to a Mutual Adoption Club where you become family with more than your blood relatives (107):

“Take one sexually inept wage slave,” she went on, “one dissatisfied female, two or (if preferred) three small television addicts; marinate in a mixture of Freudism and dilute Christianity; then bottle up tightly in a four-room flat and stew for fifteen years in their own juice. Our recipe is rather different: Take twenty sexually satisfied couples and their offspring; add science, intuition and humor in equal quantities; steep in Tantrik Buddhism and simmer indefinitely in an open pan in the open air over a brisk flame of affection.”
“And what comes out of your open pan?” he asked.
“An entirely different kind of family. Not exclusive, like your families, and not predestined, not compulsory. An inclusive, unpredestined and voluntary family. Twenty pairs of fathers and mothers, eight or nine ex-fathers and ex-mothers, and forty or fifty children of all ages.”

Fulfillment, from the Notes on What’s What (160):

“‘Patriotism is not enough.’ But neither is anything else. Science is not enough, religion is not enough, art is not enough, politics and economics are not enough, nor is love, nor is duty, nor is action however disinterested, nor, however sublime, is contemplation. Nothing short of everything will really do.”

This book is great for debate—I didn’t quote any of the anti-capitalism, anti-Catholicism, anti-sit-in-your-desk-education passages. There’s also a bunch of words about enlightenment through drugs. (This is Huxley we’re talking about.) If you’re into reading an interesting mix of Eastern spirituality, Western criticism and humanism, hey, you might like this. If you’re looking for a breezy summer read, stay away. It’s not a beach read.

KK

Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

This is a fine little book about punctuation. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation was an amusing read for me, but I’m not certain it’s for everyone.
If you cringe, or at least laugh, at mispunctuated signs I’d recommend this for you. If you’re curious about how to really use a semicolon, you’d be better off asking your friendly neighborhood English teacher (or Googling it); this book explains how to do it, yes, but there’s a lot of banter that prevents this from being efficient instruction.

This book is 204 pages of example, history and how-to. Why does this matter? According to author Lynne Truss (201):

We have a language full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves that is often complex and allusive, poetic and modulated; all our thoughts can be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and squiggles between the words in the right places. Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking.

Therefore, we can’t go the way of those rotten teenagers and SPK TXT, nor can we go the way of dead Futurist F.T. Marinetti and communicate “with unhampered words and with no connecting strings of syntax and no punctuation” (184). No, no, all that ambiguity would cause mayhem, you know? This book didn’t need to convince me of such, however; I’m already a fan of correct punctuation. What I found helpful was the clearing-up of certain ambiguities (the differences in American and British usage of terminal punctuation with quotation marks, for example).

It was a very enjoyable read, but I wouldn’t recommend it to the average civilian. If you aren’t already anal retentive about punctuation, I don’t think this book will turn you into the type who corrects apostrophes on signs.

KK

P.S. Thank you, Lynne Truss, for introducing me to my new 15th Century hero, Aldus Manutius the Elder. This scholarly printer invented italics and established firm rules for using a semicolon. LOVE HIM.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

I like to imagine the Apocalypse begins with a big ball of fire and continues with a small badass population fighting over resources. Everyone has big awesome hair and wears a lot of leather and metal. The good guys are attractive, and the bad guys all look like that inbred uncle of yours (making us all, yes, inbred, too). However, this is a product of watching The Road Warrior and Mötley Crüe music videos; the real Apocalypse isn’t going to be as fast or as stylin’.

For just this reason I really appreciate The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. The Apocalypse didn’t happen as one wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am Judgment Day, but a crumbling of civilization. We sold ourselves and starved ourselves until we were all against each other. No big event revealed the truth—that humanity is depraved. It just happened. Not the explosions you were hoping for, but the results are the same: how could you argue this isn’t the end times?

The novel starts in 2024, with precocious fifteen-year-old Lauren narrating and journaling the events that happen to her family and neighbors in their walled California compound. Don’t get the wrong idea; they’re not walled-in as a sign of wealth, but walled-in to protect themselves from robbers, looters, rapists, et. al. Some places are worse than others, yes, but all of the U.S. is in shambles, it seems (47):

“There’s cholera spreading in Southern Mississippi and Louisiana,” I said. “I heard about it on the radio yesterday. There are too many poor people—illiterate, jobless, homeless, without decent sanitation or clean water. They have plenty of water down there, but a lot of it is polluted…Tornadoes are smashing hell out of Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, and two or three other states. Three hundred people dead so far. And there’s a blizzard freezing the northern midwest, killing even more people. In New York and New Jersey, a measles epidemic is killing people. Measles!”

I imagine if our characters traveled outside the U.S. they’d be seeing the same things, if not worse. Unsurprisingly, there is a huge disparity of wealth: people have literally nothing or they have a lot. Lauren’s situation is out of the ordinary; her family has some income as her dad works at a college (can you imagine school sticking around at a time like this? I honestly can’t). The neighbors take care of each other, even sharing communal citrus trees. This is the best situation one could be in as a character in this novel, for they have something—and have souls. However, that’s all shattered one day as their compound is finally broken into. Most everyone dies—many murdered brutally—and the houses are burned to the ground.

Our heroine, a survivor, Lauren heads north, maybe to Oregon, maybe to Canada. Like the sea of refugees she passes on I-5 and 101, she just wants to get somewhere that has housing and employment. At this point we’re about halfway through the book, ready to get to the whole point: The Parable. Given the title of the book, how could you not expect a spiritual side?

All I’ve mentioned of our heroine is that she is young and precocious. She is also black, strong, and the daughter of a minister. This is all important: life, like today, is easier if you are white and male. But she is determined to survive, and her world falling apart forces her to take her ideas seriously and begin to implement them. The past several years haven’t been inventing this religion, but “stumbling across the truth [which] isn’t the same as making things up” (233). She forms Earthseed, a religion that maintains that God is Change—but the only lasting truth is Change. Earthseed’s destiny is among the stars, as there certainly isn’t anything left on Earth. Lauren isn’t being hopelessly metaphorical. She literally means that Earthseed’s followers, no matter how removed they are from her generation, will take root off-world. This is quite a goal for a teenaged girl. However, her commitment is unwavering, and you can’t help but side with her.

Butler’s character Lauren is the sort of strong female I am always excited to read about. It’s definitely sad when one is pleasantly surprised to read a strong, smart, candid female, but I am. (It is really good for me to be reading less canonical literature and more sci-fi!) In this novel Lauren is 15-18 and all sorts of kickass. She leads a group of survivors, picking up more along the way, to ultimately form the Earthseed community (see, she’s a Sower, eh?) And if I want to see how her character and community progress, I can, for there is a sequel.

I won’t bore you with what I didn’t care for in the novel (it isn’t much; I just didn’t feel affected by it). What I liked:
1. Realistic depiction of the world going to hell (I hesitate to say dystopia, for while it seems dystopian, it’s not a unified society we are dealing with).
2. Lauren is the kind of character a girl can look up to (although I’m a 27-year-old woman, I still find this very important)
3. There are so many moments that caused me to proclaim, “Ah! That just happened!” or “That is totally going to happen!” or “That should be shocking, but it isn’t.” You know I’m a sucker for all that’s relevant.

I recommend this book if you’re into strong female leads; if you want to trace a religion’s inception (yep, this seems how one would start); if you are into survivalist/post-apocalyptic literature (though it didn’t make me cry like The Road did); or if you like an engaging story.

KK

P.S. I learned that the end is nigh.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

I am late to the party, having just read On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I wonder if it is my age (a really old 27) that caused me to be more irritated than enthralled by this book, or that my student loan payments force me to stay responsible. There’s no dropping everything and running away for this girl.

On the Road is a landmark American novel, as it helped define the “Beat generation” and explored this diverse country of ours. It is written in a palatable sort of stream-of-consciousness; it is much easier to follow than, say, Mrs. Dalloway. It has that “THIS IS HAPPENING NOW” vibe, which is remarkable given it’s fifty years old. Check this out: “As the cabby drove us up the infinitely dark Alameda Boulevard along which I had walked many and many a lost night the previous months of the summer, singing and moaning and eating the stars and dropping the juices of my heart drop by drop on the hot tar…” (222). Obviously, Keruoac did an amazing job writing the thing: why does it irritate me?

The back cover (Fifteenth printing 1971) reads “The book is ultimately a celebration of life itself…” I believe that to be true, if you are a selfish jerkwad. This novel chronicles the cross-country adventures of our narrator Sal Paradise, a writer, and his many friends. The primary influence on his life is Dean Moriarty, who falls into jerkwad territory. In the aughts we call guys like this “douchebag,” but that may be too soft a term for ol’ Dean. So, Kristina, what is so irritating about this?
Dean is based on real life Beat groupie Neal Cassaday. Jack writes=Sal writes. Neal clowns around=Dean clowns around.

I am not going to belittle the accomplishments of the Beats. That’s not why I am here. The Beats helped America get less prude and do away with stupid obscenity laws. They were a necessary movement for both literature and society as a whole. They inspired the hippies, man. Can you dig? Yes!

No, instead, I am going to say that I give this book three point five out of five stars because Dean Moriarty is such a jackass. It’s a damn shame he’s based on a real person; it reminds me that far too many people like this exist. Sure, Dean could be a sweet guy and care about his friends…but he is also a low-life who couldn’t support his brood of children by several baby-mamas. I’m sorry you had a tough life, Dean, but please, use a condom. Hedonism=yay! Not taking responsibility for things=boooo. Dean is Chaotic Evil.

Dean is a necessity to this book because he inspires so much of Sal’s action. He’s a deadbeat muse. Sal, on the other hand, seems pretty tame. It’s never his idea to steal cars or destroy things. But he goes along with it, because, hey, it’s fun. So how, exactly, are we celebrating life? By behaving like complete jackasses with utter disregard for others! YAY FUN CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES COME ON. Obviously I am embittered by this.

Aside from the characters’ moral shortcomings (which doesn’t make a book bad; it’s just hard to swallow when this book is sold as a “celebration of life”), this book is pretty great. Keruoac’s prose makes you feel there. It’s not just because they are based on real people, but because he finds those minute details that make a character feel real. Check out this description of the hyperkinetic Dean (114):

Furiously he hustled into the railroad station; we followed sheepishly. He bought cigarettes. He had become absolutely mad in his movements; he seemed to be doing everything at the same time. It was a shaking of the head, up and down, sideways; jerky, vigorous hands; quick walking, sitting, crossing the legs, uncrossing, getting up, rubbing the hands, rubbing his fly, hitching his pants, looking up and saying, “Am,” and sudden slitting of the eyes to see everywhere; and all the time he was grabbing me by the ribs and talking, talking.

I felt there: Colorado, Texas, Mexico, New York, et al. Keruoac does wonders for the reader. But is imagery enough? No, it’s not. Luckily, we get a lil’ bit of philosophizing in, too. At times this is just pretentious conversations dropping Schopenhauer‘s name, but at others, it gets good—sweeter, even.

In driving past indigenous Mexicans, Dean was bewildered by the simple lives they lead and their isolation from modernity (197):

Notice the beads of sweat on her brow,” Dean pointed out with a grimace of pain. “It’s not the kind of seat we have, it’s oily and it’s always there because it’s always hot the year round and she knows nothing of non-sweat, she was born with sweat and dies with sweat.” The sweat on her brow was heavy, sluggish; it didn’t run; it just stood there and gleamed like a fine olive oil. “What that must do to their souls! How different they must be in their private concerns and evaluations and wishes!” Dean drove on with with mouth hanging in awe, ten miles an hour, desirous to see every possible human being on the road.

So I guess I don’t hate Dean completely, given his hunger for new experiences and appreciation for the little things. Everyone should definitely read this book, but keep in mind that it’s not all romantic as we tend to think of the Beat generation. It’s often sad.

KK

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

With Mockingjay, I finished the trilogy! I am so joyous because I feel like I’ve overcome something major. Once I started Hunger Games, this series was constantly on my brain. It’s so addicting; well-written young adult lit is like high-fructose corn syrup. You know there are things better for you, but it is just so sweet and immediately satisfying.

Mockingjay begins with Katniss visiting the ruins of her former home in District 12, struggling to determine reality. In Catching Fire she was sent into the Hunger Games again, and as this is the third book, you know she survived. But it wasn’t due to her ingenuity or the assistance of a loved one; she was set up to win—or at least escape—and has now become a cog in a much-larger machine, the rebellion. Now, this is something the reader has been cheering for all along, as the Capitol’s oppression was disheartening, to say the least. (Routine starvation, strict discipline, torture, meaninglessness.) However, now that the rebels have banded and are seizing control of the districts en route to the President’s manse, we readers hope for a brighter future for everyone. Katniss has accepted her role as the symbol of the rebellion: the Mockingjay did its job to ignite.

But it would be too easy to end the book with such a swift happily-ever-after. (Yay, Katniss is out of the Games and the Capitol is going down! The end.) Katniss has never taken direction well, and even though her team shares her intentions, she isn’t going to be used. Even though she suffers from PTSD like the rest of the Games alumni, Soldier Everdeen still manages to train in anticipation of seeing battle. She is disappointed to find, however, that her training was only to create more believable “propos,” or propaganda pieces. She’s still a pawn.

Katniss & crew end up in the midst of battle, though. Collins continues the motif of having a Game in each novel, as the Capitol is laid out with traps (pods) much like the arena. Luck, wit, and selflessness combine so that Katniss survives the trip through the city (unlike most of her platoon). But right as she sets sight on the President’s mansion, tragedy strikes: the worst thing that could happen, does. (I’m not spoiling it!)

However, this übertragedy, as predictable as it may have been, is necessary. As a result of it Katniss fully realizes her role as pawn for the rebellion, and that they use tactics common with the evil Capitol. It’s all very disheartening and disillusioning. But is anything ever positive in war? I was taken back to an essay question I had to answer on the AP US History test in 11th grade. It was something like: “Why did the U.S. drop atomic bombs on Japan? Was this the right decision?” I recall writing in my essay that, yes, it was the correct decision, because although we nuked 200k Japanese innocents, we prevented deaths of potentially millions of people. Now, of course, I recognize I was brainwashed by my history books—the ones written by the victors. Katniss faces this struggle in Mockingjay: she is currently on the winning side, but is it right?

The themes are more subtle in Mockingjay than the first two books in the trilogy, but I move just as valuable, but perhaps as not easily relatable. Therefore, I recommend Mockingjay and will recommend you read the trilogy as a whole. Each novel is a quick read, and although it’s young adult fiction, there are themes everyone can relate too. You lie if you say you are immune to romance, kicking ass, and heart-wrenching tragedy.

KK

PS I don’t have any earth-shaking quotes to share from this book…I returned it to the owner, thinking, “meh, there’s nothing that really stands out as a blindingly amazing tidbit worth drop-quoting.” But on my notecard, I wrote “[page]377—being human.” I wonder what that means. If you read it, try to figure it out.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

I just finished the follow-up to The Hunger Games, and it took all of my willpower to not start the final installment of the trilogy, Mockingjay. This series is more addicting than All My Children! Catching Fire begins with our beloved badass Katniss hunting in the woods outside of District 12, the bleak city-state she calls home. She’s recently returned from winning The Hunger Games and is trying to find some normalcy. Although she’s set for life as all victors are, her BFF/crush/pretend cousin Gale’s family still relies on illegal hunting to fill their bellies—plus, it’s a great comfort for Katniss. She recounts to the reader, briefly, the events from the last book and what we should expect now: a “victory tour” where she will travel to all of the districts, rubbing her victory in their wounds. These districts, after all, each lost two tributes as she survived.

But Katniss won the Games with a move that subtly defied the district. For this, she’s turned into a symbol. Katniss, the Girl on Fire, is now the symbol of a revolution. (If you don’t pick up on this at first, Collins hammers it in your head by the end of the book.) The creepy long-reigning President Snow, who always smells of roses and blood, knows this. Because she’s a victor, he can’t make her disappear like he can other rabble-rousers, but he can put her into an uncomfortable position. One of the things I like most about Katniss is that she’s an atypical girl, and she constantly reminds the reader of this. For an adult it may be repetitive, but I think the target audience—teens—needs to be reminded. If you are a badass, be a badass. Katniss has never wanted children, marriage, or that fairy tale life. If you want that for your life, then take it. Just don’t conform to others’ expectations. Snow knows Katniss doesn’t want to marry, so he uses that to try to break her: if she doesn’t marry (who, I won’t say—I’m being purposefully vague here, in case you read the trilogy), he will have her loved ones done away with.

So that’s where we’re at as Katniss departs for the victory tour. She and her mockingjay become the symbol the starving, haggard people in the districts have been waiting for, and they greet her accordingly. When she visits her deceased once-ally Rue’s district, the crowd shows their appreciation (61):

Then, from somewhere in the crowd, someone whistles Rue’s four-note mockingjay tune. The one that signaled the end of the workday in the orchards. The one that meant safety in the arena. By the end of the tune, I have found the whistler, a wizened old man in a faded shirt and overalls. His eyes meet mine.

What happens next is not an accident. It is too well executed to be spontaneous, because it happens in complete unison. Every person in the crowd presses the three middle fingers of their left hand against their lips and extends them to me. It’s our sign from District 2, the last good-bye I gave Rue in the arena.

This bit of spitting in the Capitol’s eye didn’t go unnoticed, though, as Katniss sees the old man killed by government “Peacekeepers.” Needless to say, I cried here, for I am a sap and Collins sure can manipulate her readers. This is perfect, though. We want to side with the rebels, and we want to see the rebels side with Katniss for a good reason. She can’t be an empty symbol, after all.

Katniss returns to District 12 to her home in the Victor’s Village, where she continues hunting, working out her feelings. At this point, she thinks it’s best to take her loved ones and run, to try to eke out a living on the land, avoiding whatever punishment Snow means for her—until Gale gets caught poaching. He is whipped to an inch of his life, which makes Katniss realize that there is no running from the Capitol. They’ve already hurt her and her loved ones, and running away is the result of fear, not rational thinking—”Gale is right. If people have the courage, this could be an opportunity. He’s also right that, since I have set it in motion, I could so much. Although I have no idea what exactly that would be. But deciding not to run away is a crucial first step” (123).

The symbol has realized her importance. (Oh my Science, that must weigh on one’s shoulders!) She must now determine how best to subtly stoke the revolution, while still serving as a mentor for the Games (as that’s what victors do; Katniss’ mentor, Haymitch, won the games 25 years prior). However, every 25 years the Capitol does something special for the “Quarter Quell” games: one year, each district had to double the number of tributes. This year, the Tributes are picking from each district’s pool of victors…Katniss is going back to the arena. What happens in the arena isn’t important here. Read the book. What’s important is Katniss has to realize, that as the symbol, she provides hope but she doesn’t make all the plans. This will be the hardest part for her: trusting others.

After reading The Hunger Games I said I wanted to teach it. After reading Catching Fire, I still do. I look forward to Mockingjay continuing this feeling. There are so many invaluable themes: the importance of trust, of family, of friends; how government control backfires; that it is ok to live life on your own terms, even if that means being alone; running away is not a solution; et cetera. Discussions would be so fruitful and passionate.

Hopefully the economy will recover and I’ll find a teaching job within the next ten years. If I don’t, I’ll probably be too bitter to teach a book that focuses on finding yourself & revolution: “It doesn’t matter what you do, kids. I did everything—within reason, while being a good person—to get what I wanted. It didn’t work. All I have are some crows’ feet, an alcohol dependency, and student loans I’ll never pay off. You kiddos can take your hope and optimism and shove it.”

KK

Next up is Mockingjay, the final book. This trilogy is like crack. (If it were actually crack, I’d tell you not to do it.)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

OMG WOW would be my 6-letter review of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, if I were so limited. However, I don’t practice word economy, so I get to blather on for a while.

The Hunger Games is the first book of an immensely popular young adult trilogy. Being a teacher it seemed appropriate to read it; being a lover of all things post-apocalyptic, it seemed necessary. Now, this novel isn’t like watchingSteel Dawn, Mad Max or A Boy and His Dog; it’s like reading an incredibly riveting short-and-sweet book. Why? Well, it is an incredibly riveting short-and sweet-book. Sure, it’s 374 pages of large type and ample white space, but the prose and plot are also just that damn swift. I never once got bored; in fact, I read it over two weekdays, which is atypical given my work/beer consumption schedule.

The Hunger Games features a badass teenaged protagonist, Katniss, who, as a poacher, literally puts the food on her family’s table. She’s lucky enough to live in the 12th District, the poorest sector in the nation of Panem. Panem is the former North America, ravaged by civil war and who-knows-what-else. (Who knows what else lies beyond Panem, either.) Each year, in order to assert their dominance over the twelve outlying sectors, The Capitol requires the districts to send a male and female Tribute to The Hunger Games, a televised fight-to-the-death. (Someone’s been watching reality TV!) Because the book hinges on this, I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say Katniss goes to the Hunger Games. Her name isn’t drawn as Tributes usually are; she volunteers to go, which is the first reason readers fall in love with her.

This plot may seem ordinary, given the flavors of Running Man and Survivor. However, it is enhanced given the Hunger Games’ competitors’ ages: 12-18. The Tributes aren’t hardened criminals, but unlucky saps. A few of them are Careers, having prepared their whole lives for the Games and volunteered, but most of them are just kids. This shit is brutal.

A few weeks ago I was thinking about how much I’d like to read a book and cry; I often cry while watching movies and TV, but as much as I love literature, it rarely moves me to tears (did I even cry while reading The Road?). So, peoploids, it is my duty to admit I hella cried while reading this book. (See pages 22, 38, 234, 273, 343, at least.) Collins really knows how to pull on those heartstrings. Think about the first person in the world that you would die for: imagine them being sent to a certain death that you, along with everyone you know, will watch on TV. (If you say there’s no one you would die for, you have no soul.) That death will be likely be agonizing and probably humiliating; if that person is your younger sibling, could you let it happen? I know I couldn’t (So, uh, lucky you, Sam. I’ll take your place).

Collins doesn’t stop there with the tear-bait, though. Reading about selflessness is tear-inducing, yeah, but there’s so much more. And because it’s a YA novel, there’s enough romance to keep you interested (you know you were wondering). I think I’ve said enough. This book is in an incredibly entertaining read, but it also forces you to think about who you love and how far you would go to as a result (and Katniss isn’t the only character to prove her love in the book, either). There are also other themes you could pick up on too, concerning government oppression and society’s obsession with watching others bleed. Man, I want to teach this book so bad. It would make an amazing freshman read, I think.

KK

P.S. In case you didn’t pick up on it, the protagonist Katniss is female. A complicated, confused, kickass female. Thank you, Suzanne Collins.

P.P.S. Next up is Catching Fire, the second of the trilogy. I think I’ll be staying up late tonight.

Spook by Mary Roach

I read Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife for three reasons: 1. I loved the author Mary Roach’s sciency/investigative book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. 2. Roach is smart and funny (see her TED talk) and 3. I found the hardcover at St. Vincent De Paul for $1.74.

I have a soft spot for the afterlife. If L.Ron Hubbard’s correct, I get a free trip to Venus. If he’s not, I won’t know, because I’ll be dead. Anyway, I enjoy things pertaining to the afterlife because of the folklore surrounding it. Spirit photography? Séances? I love reading about these things. (Never, however, ask me to sit around a Ouija board. Just freaks me out.)  To show you how much this fascinates me, I would like to direct you to a project I created for a Digital Imaging class. We had to manipulate photos and do something cool with them. I had been enjoying my folklore class (Wojcik FTW!) and worked it into my project: I created a LiveJournal account (named Ecto-Cooler, after the Hi-C flavor inspired by film’s greatest blob of ectoplasm) and posted fake spirit photography. I graduated five years ago, so the links are broken. However, I think it’s appropriate to recreate the page here for all of posterity.

That doesn’t mean I’m not a skeptic, though. I just think it’s a rollicking good time. So, I didn’t pick up Spook because I wanted research to prove we have souls that live on after our body expires. Nah, I just wanted to read about experiments and weird people. I recommend the book, for it most definitely featured those two things. Roach starts the book admitting that she’s skeptical, but is going to try and approach all of her reading, interviews, and observations with an open mind. This proves to be very difficult; at times I wonder why she said this. It makes you question her motives. Nevertheless, she recounts all of her experiences in labs, workshops, peoples’ homes, taxicabs…in great detail and with respect. She’s not out to make fun of anyone, but to document the search for the soul.

She interviews people who research or have a good story that proves reincarnation, weighs the soul after death, views the soul on different wavelengths, speaks to spirits, hears them in white noise, etc. Each chapter focuses on a different facet of spiritualism. We meet people who are convinced their son is a reincarnated nearby villager or that EMFs expose nearby spirits (these people probably didn’t take kindly to Michael Keaton’s magnum opus White Noise.)
Roach herself takes some courses to detect spirits (via photography or sound equipment) and determines that the people into it, although the proof is not on their side, are sincere and overly optimistic. The days of making good money contacting spirits is (mostly) gone—excepting big name mediums like John Edward, of course.

If any of this stuff is remotely interesting, I recommend reading the book. If you are looking for Roach to provide proof that the soul exists apart from our living selves, you’ll be disappointed. But if you want to learn nuggets such as “the heyday of spiritualism—with its séances and spirit communications zinging through the ether—coincided with the dawn of the electric age” (201), then this book is for you. I don’t read nearly enough non-fiction, so I don’t have much to compare this to. I enjoy Roach’s willingness to talk to anyone and try anything and her humorous approach to it all. I think Stiff is a better book (it really got me thinking of what to do with this body when I’m gone)—funnier and more interesting—but most of Spook‘s chapters kept me intrigued.

KK

Next up: The Hunger Games (Finally, I’m reading something relevant.)

Finally! Photos are up. (originally posted March 14, 2006 on http://ecto-cooler.livejournal.com/)

I finally got my photos scanned in. “Finally? You just created your LJ!”

I’ve had these photographs laying around for a while now. I like to use black and white film for spirit photography, as I think it catches spirits better. Weird preference, I know!
These photos are pretty much arranged from least dramatic to most dramatic. I don’t know what it is about my roommate, but I am glad I found her! Through Craigslist, actually. A spirit photographer and a medium living in the same apartment? It’s nothing short of amazing!

This is outside the apartment; there appears to be spirit activity in the form of a mist, around the bushes.

This is again, outside the apartment. There is a little path with lights… this area outside my door is rife with spirit activity! Check out those orbs!

Here’s where it starts to get weird — when my medium roommate and her acquaintance watch “24,” a spirit appeared out of nowhere! It must like Jack Bauer (he is a badass).

Further attesting to the spirit activity in the home, I snapped a photo of the stairs — as a spirit climbed them!

Now, this looks like the stair-climber to me! He’s so young, that’s probably why he took to my cat, Bun-Bun. This photo is nothing short of amazing — probably the most convincing photograph ever taken of a spirit. Cats can’t be suspended magically, after all!

My roommate and I were discussing the presence of spirits in our apartment, when she brought up the need for a seance. She and two acquaintances sat together channeling spirits, while I tried my best to hide and snap pictures. I didn’t want to scare an otherwise-shy spirit away!
As it turns out, this seance was incredibly successful. I measure a seance successful if we get in contact with a spirit. Well, a spirit sure did: it manifested itself physically in the form of ectoplasm! After some further investigation of the photos, I believe the spirit present was that of Pope John Paul II!

Thanks for checking this out. Comment if you’d like!

XOXO Ecto

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Neuromancer wasn’t shoved into my hands or down my pants like other sci-fi landmarks Dhalgren and Dune were. However, I felt pressure to read it as I become steeped in the sci-fi world. I’ve heard so much about it being the first popular work of cyberpunk, I knew I had to read it. I don’t know much more than the basics about cyberpunk; however, I’ve got a Blade Runner tattoo and I’m a Billy Idol fan. (That was a joke. Cyberpunk was an ill-fated ’90s album Idol put out that no one bought—even me, and I was quite the fangirl in high school.) Given how much Neuromancer means to the genre, any sci-fi fan must read it.

Our protagonist, Case, is a console cowboy, wrangling past security to perform jobs in the digital frontier. If he didn’t do this to make money, we’d consider him a hacker. However, his being paid to break security and steal makes him a thief. So, yeah, that’s Case. He stole from an employer who took retribution to its ultimate lengths: they administered a drug that damaged Case’s central nervous system. He can still function like a normal human being, but he can no longer function as a hacker, as it is necessary to hook one’s brain—”jack in”—to the computer. Since then, he’s been hustling drugs. He’s got no future doing what he loves.

But in steps a mysterious guy, Armitage, who looks ex-Special Forces. He’s got quite a job for Case, and he’ll get his brain fixed in order to make it happen. Working with Case are the creepy Finn, who turns out to be more than just a workstation tech, and Molly, a badass gun-for-hire. They have to physically break into places (that’s what Molly is for) and jack into mainframes with the highest possible security. It’s a risky operation that goes deeper than they can imagine, with more conspiracies than an Art Bell fan. However, the payoff is quite handsome, so Case accepts the job, not fully understanding the risks—or that he’ll be dealing with some serious AI.

I read that William Gibson saw Blade Runner after writing part of this novel, and figured he was done for, as people would assume he lifted the aesthetics from the film. There are times when Gibson describes a city and you picture a supercyber dystopia replete with Replicants. However, that doesn’t feel lifted; it feels like any dystopian future sci-fi you might read or watch. It’s just what happens when you put them together. However, when I read Neuromancer my brain-pictures were more of Tron-variety. I suppose there are only so many ways to describe fusing mind and computer (maybe that’s something we need to work on?). Nevertheless, I was impressed. Gibson created or co-opted much of the cyberpunk lexicon. The book is startingly alive; the atmosphere rivals what Poe does for U.S. Gothic. For this reason alone I absolutely must recommend this book. Here’s a sample (116):

Case punched to within four grid points of the cube. Its blank face, towering above him  now, began to seethe with faint internal shadows, as though a thousand dancers whirled behind a vast sheet of frosted glass.

“Knows we’re here,” the Flatline observed.

Case punched again, once; they jumped forward by a single grid point.

A stippled gray circle formed on the face of the cube.

“Dixie…”

“Back off, fast.”

The gray area bulged smoothly, became a sphere, and detached itself from the cube.

Case felt the edge of the deck sting his palm as he slapped MAX REVERSE. The matrix blurred backward; they plunged down a twilit shaft of Swiss banks. He looked up. The sphere was darker now, gaining on him. Falling.

“Jack out,” the Flatline said.

The dark came down like a hammer.

So, yeah, awesome. Sure, it  may sound like The Matrix looks, but keep in mind this was 15 years prior. So cool. Speaking of The Matrix, we cared about those characters (at least in the first one). Would Keanu Reeves survive? (I always hope yes.) Are we in danger of being controlled by machines? (Too late. Remember all those Man vs. VCR battles of 1989?)

I’m by no means a Matrix fangirl, but in comparing the two I’m able to articulate what I don’t like about Neuromancer. The plot has some great tangents and twists. But I didn’t care for any of the characters. I didn’t want them to die, of course. But I felt no connection to any of them; not even any sympathy (or hell, even hatred). Thematically speaking, it makes me wonder about the possibility of an AI-dominated future and what it holds for mankind. But there’s little else it caused me to think about. Through a critical lens I could consider the role of Molly, and how she might be a feminist hero. But that’s tenuous.

It’s hard to enjoy a book for the sake of its atmosphere and plot. You’re taught to want more out of it…and when you can’t find it, you lose enthusiasm. Readers, I have lost enthusiasm for this review. I recommend Neuromancer because it is so damn important. Reading it, you can see how so much sci-fi, not merely cyberpunk, was influenced by it. The atmosphere is palpable; the images 3-D; Gibson’s voice alive. I just want more out of it.

KK

Next up: Spook by Mary Roach. I’m a little over halfway, and it’s been a fun read thus far.