by William Styron
Another dusty paperback from the back of my home shelves. I don't know where this one came from--my husband claims it's mine and I am certain he bought it used for undergrad English 101. The loopy scrawls of a long-gone coed annotate the yellowed pages of this little gem.
Marine recruits and veteran officers swelter through training camp "in the blaze of a Carolina summer." Captain Mannix despises everything about the Marine Corps, but his most passionate fury is directed towards Colonel Templeton. The Colonel, a polar opposite of the Captain, has a calm demeanor, a man "to whom the greatest embarrassment would be a show of emotion." Captain rants and rages against Colonel along the course of a 36-mile forced march over dusty roads and through insect-infested swamps, an uncomfortable test of rank vs. will.
Long-Gone Coed summed it up on the inner back cover: "He realized how feudal it was."
Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Thursday, March 14, 2013
March and Caleb's Crossing
by Geraldine Brooks, submitted by BB
I have just finished this book I absolutely could not wait to pick it up again each time I set it down. This is a novel which takes place during the Civil War. Brooks was a NYT foreign correspondent in several countries. Her language and metaphors are definitive and refreshing. I plan to order another by her called "Caleb's Crossing.
I have just finished this book I absolutely could not wait to pick it up again each time I set it down. This is a novel which takes place during the Civil War. Brooks was a NYT foreign correspondent in several countries. Her language and metaphors are definitive and refreshing. I plan to order another by her called "Caleb's Crossing.
April 2: I just finished Caleb's Crossing. It includes the history of Martha's Vineyard and Harvard in the 1600s as she weaves her wonderful imaginative story around facts and real people.
I loved her last paragraph where she ruminated "if I had made a different choice back then, how many other lives would have changed and including mine. Interesting to think about. All for now.
Nemesis: Audiobook
by Philip Roth
This is the first book I've 'read' by Philip Roth. I'm never sure if the pleasure of listening to a book is any indication of how it would read, but narrator Dennis Boutsikaris does an excellent job of giving voice to the ordinary people herein faced with extraordinary events in "equatorial New Jersey" through the summer of 1944. Each day as I listened while driving through Denver, I was reluctant to stop the CD, turn off the car, and return to my life of errands.
In the realm of scene setting (as in "it was a dark and stormy night"), the stifling heat of Newark during a horrific summer-time polio epidemic while the city's young men are off fighting and dying in Europe and Asia redefines the art. The outside air is stifling and heavy with humidity, pedestrians soaked with sweat as soon as they leave their houses. Protagonist Bucky Cantor is sweating alright, trying to navigate the moral high ground as playground director, teacher, grandson, and fiance. Classified 4-F due to poor eyesight, he tries to justify his safe life at home while his friends are overseas in the army where he'd like to be.
This upright, literal-minded, good-hearted man vacillates from moment to moment, changes his mind at night and again in the morning, struggles mightily to do the right thing. How does one live and love on despite personal and global tragedy? A sad and thought-provoking book.
This is the first book I've 'read' by Philip Roth. I'm never sure if the pleasure of listening to a book is any indication of how it would read, but narrator Dennis Boutsikaris does an excellent job of giving voice to the ordinary people herein faced with extraordinary events in "equatorial New Jersey" through the summer of 1944. Each day as I listened while driving through Denver, I was reluctant to stop the CD, turn off the car, and return to my life of errands.
In the realm of scene setting (as in "it was a dark and stormy night"), the stifling heat of Newark during a horrific summer-time polio epidemic while the city's young men are off fighting and dying in Europe and Asia redefines the art. The outside air is stifling and heavy with humidity, pedestrians soaked with sweat as soon as they leave their houses. Protagonist Bucky Cantor is sweating alright, trying to navigate the moral high ground as playground director, teacher, grandson, and fiance. Classified 4-F due to poor eyesight, he tries to justify his safe life at home while his friends are overseas in the army where he'd like to be.
This upright, literal-minded, good-hearted man vacillates from moment to moment, changes his mind at night and again in the morning, struggles mightily to do the right thing. How does one live and love on despite personal and global tragedy? A sad and thought-provoking book.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
The Lifeboat
by Charlotte Rogan
I
thoroughly enjoyed The Lifeboat, a
first novel by Charlotte Rogan. Astute and “self-loyal” Grace Winter, age 22, a
newlywed in the summer of 1914, narrates this novel.
Following an explosion on
a luxury Atlantic Ocean liner, Grace survives three weeks on an overcrowded
lifeboat without her husband Henry. Grace subsequently finds herself on trial
for murder. Shipwreck, survival, power struggles and moral dilemmas provide
dramatic metaphors for many problems faced by ordinary people. One reviewer dubbed
this book “Lord of the Flies with Edwardian ladies”.
Rogan is interested in philosophy (Hobbs) and the
idea that people create society out of a given state of nature, making up rules and giving up certain freedoms for security. This book
is a page-turner and a fascinating psychological study of several complex
characters, especially Grace Winters.
Submitted by HKw
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