The Bear by Andrew Krivak (Book Review)

 

The Bear 

By Andrew Krivak

Published by Bellevue Literary Press, 2020

Somehow the world has ended in apocalyptic fashion. Cities are gone. Civilization is gone. 

Advanced technology is gone. Like God did a reboot of the system. But this is not a beginning. It is the end. For there are only two humans left: A father and his 7 year old daughter living in a primitive cabin on the side of a mountain next to a lake and forest. Her mother is dead and buried under a stone cairn at the top of the mountain that is shaped like a bear. Supposedly, the father tells his daughter that the "Spirit of Thorn", a godlike shapeshifter watches over this place and them.

The highest tech that the two possess is a brass compass, flint and steel to start fires, and knives. Everything else they have to fashion from nature, including bows and arrows and the clothes they wear. If they want to eat, they have to hunt or harvest their food from the plants around them. This is not seen as hardship. It is seen as a normal course of life. 

When the girl is about 12 years old, her father tells her they must make a long journey to the sea to get salt which they use to preserve their food. Along the way her father is injured and the girl must begin to think about what she will do without him....Maybe a talking bear will have the answer! 

The Bear to me is another in a long line of literary works that is plastered with blurbs from supposedly important critics and authors as "destined for great things" or "a singular talent". The problem with this kind of writer is that the proof is in the pudding. My shelves are lined with authors who were seen as up and coming and 30 or 40 years later nobody reads their books or knows who they are. They gush "A writer of rare and powerful elegance"! Maybe the writer themselves becomes flushed with self importance. The problem with this author and with this book is that neither are very good. 

I know The Bear is supposed to be an important work. I think the author thinks so too. But just because you set a book at the end of humanity doesn't mean its good. It just feels like a survivalist to do list with Disney talking animals thrown in. Kind of like a cross between Jungle Book and Hatchet. Throw in a little Walden as well. But without the insight. Girl gets up, finds water, hunts, kills food. Clean eat sleep repeat. It just never seems to go anywhere. 

I get it, Krivak was going for the broad character strokes of the Bible but the book gets worn down in the boring Hemingway banal details. I never felt like I got to know these two people. They were more like mythic archetypes. And that's great too IF you have an interesting plot. When the plot is just survival....well....meh...you know....

I will definitely take a hard pass on reading any of Krivak's other works and this books is going in the Goodwill donation crate. 

My Grade: D-

Star Wars Dark Nest I: The Joiner King (Book Review)

 

Star Wars Dark Nest I: The Joiner King

By Troy Denning

Published by Del Rey, 2005

Set 35 years after the events of A New Hope,  It's 6 years since the Yuuzhon Vong War ended that left multiple worlds destroyed or devastated and countless millions, if not billions, dead. The Galactic Alliance is trying to pick up the pieces and restore order to the galaxy but its not going to be easy. Greed and corruption are already infecting the reconstruction efforts in the name of profit and opportunity. 

The Jedi are in a bit of disarray. The long war made them cut some moral corners and do some questionable things and their robes aren't quite so clean and sparkly as they used to be. The whole cliche in fighting a monster you become a monster argument comes up. They don't really see the world in black and white anymore, just grey. 

The plot gets rolling when a distress call is broadcast through the Force to a select group of Jedi, including Jacen and Jaina Solo. The other Jedi that hear the call are the other members of the Myrkr mission from the New Jedi Order book series in which a group of young Jedi were sent on a mission to destroy the voxyn breeding program. Voxyn were creatures bred by the Yuuzhon Vong expressly to kill Jedi. To survive that mission, the Jedi strike force entered a battlemeld, like a telepathic battle bond, and its through this battlemeld that the distress message comes. 

Soon enough, Jacen, Jaina, and the other survivors of Myrkr, including Tahiri, drop their Jedi duties and head to the Unknown Regions where the call is emanating from. 

When they get to the source they find themselves in the middle of a conflict between the Chiss Ascendency and a race of sentient insects known as the Kilik who are on the brink of war. They also find an old friend long thought lost. 

I started reading the New Jedi Order series because I thought the Last Jedi sucked so bad. So I saw these books as an alternative to the awful Disney take on Star Wars. I mean at least George Lucas was still running the show when these books came out. I finished all 19 books over the course of about 5 years and they weren't great but they were good enough to keep me interested enough to read all of them. 

For the most part, I liked this first volume of a trilogy that is next in the timeline. I do think the Kilik are kinda lame. Human sized ants? Is this the best you can do? Actually they come in all sizes, from Ant-Man size to the size of tanks or bigger. The scary thing is if you stay in their nests too long you become part of their groupthink, losing your individual will, and you become known as a "Joiner". That's the scary aspect of them, not their appearance. 

It's nice to see Luke, Han, and Leia having adventures TOGETHER again. In the Disney sequels everyone is dead now. So pathetic that they didn't get them back together even for ONE scene. I know George would have. Luke didn't become a total failure in this timeline. Him and Mara Jade are married and have a young son who is currently cutting himself off from the Force for some reason a la Luke in the Last Jedi. 

Han and Leia have two kids, Jacen and Jaina, who are both Jedi and are essentially Kylo Ren and Rey as far as their personalities. Jacen is starting to creep people out a bit with his moodiness and detachment and increasing Force powers while Jaina is impulsive and adventurous and wants to save the galaxy from all threats. 

It's kinda weird how many themes, characters, plot notes, and just the overall ambience of this novel remind me a lot of Disney Star Wars. 

For example, the Dark Side is seen as having a sexual seduction in this book. I remember one scene where Luke is in some dive and and an alien says something like "You'd be surprised to see what I can do with this claw. Are you interested?". Echoed a line of Lando's droid in the Han Solo movie. Another example is a Jedi having emotional difficulties wears skin tight almost see through suits and seems very horny. Seemed very Acolyte to me. 

And when a Jedi says "Blank is gone. I am what remains" (Name redacted for spoilers) which was a line Darth Vader speaks in the Obi-Wan series. 

And again, there's the moral relativism that the Jedi exhibit in this first book, where they are more interested in the ends than the means which a Master like Yoda would never condone. All this makes me wonder if the writers of the Disney sequels read this trilogy for ideas. 

I liked the book and will definitely continue on with the second volume in the series. 

My Grade: B

Empty Theatre by Jac Jemc (Book Review)

 

Empty Theatre
By Jac Jemc
Published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 
Print Price: $28

What you have in this book is two idiots who somehow find themselves both rulers, one of a kingdom, and the other a co-ruler of an empire. 

King Ludwig II of Bavaria would rather finance Richard Wagner's latest opera and build elaborate castles right out of chivalric romances than get down to the nitty gritty of ruling his land. He's been spoiled from the day he was born in terms of material wealth. Emotional support from his parents...well, let's just say its nonexistent. 

Empress Elizabeth of Austria, Ludwig's cousin, who is known better as simply Sisi, was caught up in the glamour of being wooed by an emperor, but quickly figures out that her role is more akin to a prisoner. Her mother-in-law, the Archduchess, controls everything and everyone is just concerned with Sisi being a baby factory for male heirs. Even when she has babies, the Archduchess whisks them away to be raised as royalty who have more attachment to her than her natural mother. 

Meanwhile, Ludwig is running his kingdom into the ground with all his wasteful financial expenditures while Sisi and her husband have to deal with the increasing nationalism spreading through their empire which will ultimately lead to a century of death and destruction in Europe. 

The novel generally alternates between chapters about Ludwig and Sisi from their young lives until their deaths with them corresponding and meeting each other from time to time.  The author Jac Jemc admits at the end of the book that she took a lot of liberties with the source material and says that the two real life figures themselves constructed a novel of their lives to suit their own viewpoints. 

Early on, you can tell the political stripe of Jemc when she says the Crusades "marked one of the darkest moments of human history, a pure and unveiled campaign of extermination, erasure, intolerance".  I guess she seemed to forget that the Arabs went on war campaigns all throughout the Mediterranean and conquered what used to be most of the Roman Empire. As for erasure, the Hagia Sophia USED to be a church. Once it was conquered by Muslims, it was converted to a mosque. Hmmm, erasure? I'm sure no innocent was killed in these wars right? Muslims good, Christians bad. 

Once I got past that moment of historical idiocy, I actually enjoyed the book. It recalled moments of Harry and Meghan in the sense that you have two people who act like they want to escape from the powers and duties of their rank but show no qualms in exercising that power when it suits their ends. Yes, I want absolute power but no responsibilities. I have no interest in the nuts and bolts of ruling. I have no interest in making my nation better. I have no interest in helping my people. 

I will say Sisi is the more morally sound of the two. She does try to help unfortunates from time to time, but she was more concerned with her hair and waistline instead of diplomacy or statecraft. They are both pretty revolting people really. Ludwig reminded me a bit of a foreshadowing of Michael Jackson, a person that had so much money they could insulate themselves from adulthood. Sisi too comes off as a child trapped in an adult body, who only towards her end was able to carve out spiritual space for herself. 

I enjoyed the book but it wasn't good enough to keep so I will definitely be putting it in the donation pile. Also, Jemc as an author did not really impress me enough to seek out another work by her. The ending of this novel was almost laughably bad right out of Elvis and Jim Morrison conspiracy theories. 

My Grade: B

An Impossible Love by Christine Angot (Book Review)

 

An Impossible Love 

By Christine Angot
Translated by Armine Mortimer
Published by Archipelago Books, 2021
Price: $18

Rachel is 26 and Pierre is 30 when they meet in latter half of the 1950s in France. She works for the Securite Sociale and he is a translator at an American army base. He comes from money and she does not. In fact, you could even say she lives in squalor with her mom. But you know what they say, opposites attract. They begin spending a lot of time together and they fall in love. Rachel is head over heels in love with Pierre and wants to be with him always. Pierre, on the other hand, isn't quite looking for a conventional relationship. 

Pierre wants his freedom. He enjoys his time with Rachel but does not want to be around her 24/7. He wants to see other women. He wants to focus on his job. In effect, he only wants Rachel around when it is convenient to him. Marriage is out of the question but paradoxically, he would like to have a child with Rachel. It does not really make a lot of sense. But Rachel goes along with whatever scraps of love Pierre will give her. They do have a daughter together, who coincidentally is named Christine, just like the author of the book. But Pierre begins to be around less and less after Christine's birth and leaves her upbringing to Rachel. What a swell guy. 

Christine, the author of book, is also the narrator of An Impossible Love, which is where this book enters into some weird meta territory. Obviously, the author was not a witness to her parents courtship and cannot know what their dialogue was like. I went into this thinking this book was a novel but realized as soon as the daughter's name was mentioned it was going to be one of those hybrid novel autobiography memoirs mish mashes. It makes you question what is fact and fiction. What has been sensationalized or made up in the service of the art? To be honest, I did not really care. I just looked at it as writing. 

The book jacket mentions events twisting against social order and human decency and "enacting a form of violence with consequences that echo through multiple generations". There was not any of that in the first 2/3s of the book, but since it was on the jacket, I knew something horrible was going to happen at some point in the work so I was waiting for the other shoe to drop as I was reading. When it finally does come, I cannot say I was surprised since this author also wrote a book called Incest and constantly brings up how she was molested by her dad. It seems to be an event or theme that runs through a lot of her work. But the danger of constantly using and revisiting that trauma is that it can become self exploitive or that Angot might fall into the trap of writing the same book over and over again. 

It's hard to say what my experience is when I think of words to describe it. The book jacket sets you up for a jump scare so you are always waiting for some event to happen on the next page. It was sad. It was tragic, but what is the truth? Are the motivations of Rachel and Pierre true or just what their daughter made up in her head? 

Was it a bad book? No. Was it good enough to keep and not donate to my goodwill or public libary? No. Don't really have interest in reading another book by Angot. Feel like it will just be another book about incest. 

My Grade: C

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (Book Review)

 

Great Expectations 

By Charles Dickens
Published by Penguin Classics, 2003
Price: $11

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away kids weren't as dumb as they are now. In school, you read actual CLASSICS instead of now standard woke vanilla literature that is "safe" for everyone. I read an abridged version of Great Expectations in the 12th grade. It was actually IN our literature book. Not in an honors course, but the standard regular class that ALL 12th graders took. I had been feeling a bit nostalgic for those days and decided that I wanted to reread the novel. I remembered bits and pieces of the book, the overall plot, but not a lot of the particulars. 

The main character, Pip, is just a young kid when the book starts, visiting the grave of his dead parents. While there, he encounters an escaped convict that will have a profound effect upon his life, though he doesn't know it at the time. He has been raised by his 20 years older sister and her husband, Joe, a blacksmith.

Pip's path is to apprentice with Joe and follow him into that that profession. But his aspirations begin to change when a rich weirdo woman named Ms. Havisham invites Pip to come "play" at her house. If that had happened in 2021, Havisham would immediately have been suspected as some kind of Michael Jackson pedophile. It's really not a completely far away comparison. Ms. Havisham's house is frozen in time because of a broken heart. All the clocks stopped at the same time, she still wears her wedding dress from twenty years prior. Even her wedding CAKE still sits on the table, covered by spider webs, bugs, and rats! 

It's also at the house that Pip meets Estella, Havisham's ward, whose beauty is only matched by her coldness, and Pip is instantly smitten. Estella looks down on Pip's lowly blacksmith future, inspiring Pip to become a "gentleman" so he can win her heart! Strangely enough, soon after that, Pip is contacted by a mysterious benefactor whose sole aim is to make his dreams come true! 

I have to admit I am a late admirer of Dickens. I had read David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and even this book in the past and was pretty meh about the author. But in the past year or so I have read Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities, and then a reread of this book and I'm pretty much a huge fan now and want to read all his works. 

 The blurb on the back of this book calls Great Expectations a "haunting late novel". Why haunting? I guess because it does have a sort of gothic supernatural tinge to it, bordering on horror at some points. Ms. Havisham is scary what with her haunted house and suspension in time, all her windows shuttered from sunlight. It made me respect Pip all the more that he was brave enough to interact and even "befriend" such a ghostlike apparition. Even Estella, the great beauty, reminds me of the robot from Ex Machina, who seemed to have human emotions but in the end was a purely reptilian entity. 

And then there's Pip's encounter with an escaped convict at the beginning of the novel in a disquieting graveyard where he is threatened with a horrible death if he does not bring food and drink.  

Another reason it might be called haunting is because the story lingers in your thoughts long after you finish reading it. Mainly, because it has a Shakespearean humanity to it. Yes, this is what humans do. They do stupid things in order to obtain the affections of someone they love, even though their purpose is completely doomed. They do good AND bad things. Pip disassociates with his former friends and family once he becomes a gentleman because he finds them embarrassing, but he also helps set up one of his friends in a good career situation. He does the good deed anonymously purely out of altruistic motives. That's why I compare Dickens to Shakespeare. He is talented enough that he can show the full breadth of human experience, which only the masters ever accomplish. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a friend about Jimi Hendrix's guitar playing. I marvel at Hendrix because he never seems to run out of a musical idea. He only puts the guitar down at some point or stops playing. No matter when he starts again, it just seemed like his playing was merely on pause, even when he begins a complete different song. It just flows out of him. I feel the same way about Dickens. His storytelling seems almost effortless. I don't get the feeling that he ever had writer's block. His plots seem so original even though they are pretty simple. Each book he writes contains a universe. Even the minor characters seem to be alive and make a statement even if they appear even in just a couple of lines. 

Great novel. 

My Grade: A+ 

The Society of Reluctant Dreamers by Jose Eduardo Agualasa (Book Review)

 

The Society of Reluctant Dreamers
By Jose Eduardo Agualasa
Translated by Daniel Hahn
Published by Archipelago Books, 2020
Print Price: $18

Daniel Benchimol is an Angolan journalist who finds himself blackballed from the news biz because his rich father-in-law disapproved of his challenges to the political status quo in the country. What's even worse is that his wife, siding with Daddy, wants a divorce because she feels that by going against her father's wishes, he is disrespecting her family. As Daniel's waking world is collapsing, the world of his dreams becomes more alive and vibrant. In his dreams, he can interview anyone he wants, dead revolutionaries, politicians, and even famous authors. 

While swimming one day, he finds a waterproof camera containing photos of a woman he has been dreaming about. She turns out to be an artist that recreates her own dreams and even knows a man that has invented a machine that can record and play people's dreams! 

I really liked the first 2/3s of this novel with all its surreal imagery and dream subjects. I also liked that you got a lot of different perspectives from the various characters, even ones you would think of as just the supporting cast. You jump back and forth through different points of view and time but it never got confusing. Instead, it just made the narrative fuller and more robust. 

Towards the last bit of the book, the story becomes more involved in the real world politics of Angola when Daniel's daughter becomes involved in a protest movement to get rid of the President of the country. All of the imagery and intriguing storytelling at that point gets kicked out the door and the book becomes a totally realistic picture of any revolt of the young against the status quo. As a result, it gets really boring. It was a shame too because it had potential to be a really good novel. But the contrast between the two parts was too great for me. 

Something that I did enjoy was learning about Angola. I had ZERO idea that Portuguese was the dominant tongue there or of its colonial history with that country. And of the various cultures that exist there. So that was a positive. 

My Grade: C-

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (Book Review)

 

Don Quixote

By Miguel De Cervantes

Translated by Edith Grossman
Published by Ecco, 2005
Print Price:$19.99 

Watching the savage millenials and antifa rioting in the streets this summer, I was surprised to hear that one of the statues they had defaced in San Fran was one of Miguel De Cervantes. Something I had no knowledge of was that the author of Don Quixote had at one time been a slave. This got me interested in reading the novel. I think I might actually have read the first part of it way back in the 90s but did not like it enough to continue to the second part. I think it was the Oxford translation. But knowing how great Edith Grossman is at her job I decided I would give it a second shot. 

I think of Don Quixote as the first LARPer. He's a man who was so into tales of knightly chivalry that he decided to act out their plots and deeds. Well, he's not INTENTIONALLY role playing. He's quite mad. And he drags along a local farmer named Sancho Panza as his squire and companion. He travels around Spain seeing giants, sorcerers, enchanted maidens, and magnificent castles. Of course, in reality he is fighting windmills, common criminals, priests, and his maidens are slutty inn waitresses. Sancho Panza is at once his thin tie to reality and his enabler, as because he is just dumb, Sancho at times falls into his master's delusions. At others, he sees reality, and sometimes even uses Quixote's madness to help himself. Even though he is a fool, he only half believes what the Don tells him about being given the governorship of an island in return for his service. Essentially, the novel is a buddy road trip. 

The late great Harold Bloom mentioned Cervantes and Shakespeare in the same breath, as equals. I think Cervantes falls WAY short of that bar. Was Don Quixote a good book? Yes. Was it a MASTERPIECE? Hmm, not quite so sure. I've not had much luck with supposed classics that are large tomes. Les Miserables? Definitely check out the abridged version. Anna Karenina? A thousand pages about an AFFAIR? The only huge classic I've ever read that I have loved from beginning to end is Tom Jones by Henry Fielding. That one lived up to its billing.

I was not impressed or amazed by this book. I get the fact that it is culturally important as it is seen as the first "modern" novel. I recognize that it has had a vast influence on writers of all nationalities and languages. But me, I was meh. Even being in on the in-joke of the work, having read Le Morte D'Arthur by Malory not that long ago. I got exactly what Cervantes was going for in parodying tales of knightly daring do. But I still just could not get into it. 

To me, the most interesting part of Don Quixote is the second part which gets really meta. In Part 2, the characters in the book have READ the book I am reading! So they know all about his adventures with Sancho and of his madness. There's even an author who pirated Cervantes's book and characters and wrote his own sequel in the gap between Parts 1 and 2, which actually occurred in real life. But from what I could tell, this did not enrage Cervantes, but instead amused him. He pokes a lot of fun at the bootleg sequel in his OWN sequel. 

Quixote is like a celeb in Part 2. Dukes, noblewomen, even bandits all know his story, and want to be a part of it. They honor him and humor him by going along with his altered perceptions of reality. THAT was the most modern element of the novel, the meta aspects. 

At the time of its publication, Don Quixote was seen as a comedy/parody of a dying order of knighthood that probably never existed anyway besides in the pages of books. In more modern circles, some see it as a tragedy. It probably would not be printed today in the woke world we live in because they would say it ridicules the mentally ill. 

I see it more in the comedy/parody vein. To me, at least, 400 years ago, with Quixote being in his 50s, how much longer would his average lifespan be, a few years perhaps? At least in HIS mind, he saw some extraordinary things. He fought wizards, rescued maidens, met kings and queens, battled giants and lions! Sounds pretty exciting to me. His visions of the world in his mind made the it a much more interesting place than it actually was. It reminded me a lot of anime where the main characters get trapped in a virtual Dungeons and Dragons world and cannot escape. I mean, for all intents and purposes, Quixote was playing a videogame, or as I said, LARPing. What was wrong or pitiable about an old man living out his fantasies adventuring on the road? 

And what can I say about the translator Edith Grossman? If you read Spanish works in English, she is a a LEGEND. I would pick up a book with HER name on it, knowing nothing about the work. If she found an author worthy of translation, then there must be some merit in them. 

Is this an important book? With iconic characters? Yes. Is it as great as Shakespeare? No. Sorry Mr. Bloom. 

My Grade: B+

Star Wars The New Jedi Order Book 10: Dark Journey--- Book Review

 

Star Wars: The New Jedi Order Book 10

Dark Journey
By Elaine Cunningham
Published by Del Rey, 2002
Ebook Price: $7.99

After the death of one brother and the capture of the other, Jaina Solo and Kyp Durron, along with what's left of a Jedi strike team that was sent to take out the Voxyn nest on the planet Myrkr are looking for a safe port to regroup. They settle on the Hapes system, the main planet that just happens to be where the mother of one of the Jedi, Tenel Ka, rules as queen. You would think that would be a good thing but the Jedi land right in the middle of a battle for succession to the throne of Hapes. Tenel Ka's mom is relatively young but seems to be afflicted with a disease that has left her in almost a Alzheimer's like state. She doesn't really understand anything you say to her, hardly recognizes anyone and just sits around or lays in bed all day. One of her last acts was to let refugees from the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of Coruscant to take shelter on her planet. The Vong make a point of attacking planets where refugees hide out so the Hapens are waiting for the other shoe to fall. Tenel Ka's grandmother, who was the former queen, is very active behind the scenes trying to get rid of her own daughter and marry her son to a younger bride....maybe even Jaina! 

I am a little over halfway through this 18 book series and one thing I like about such a long series is that you have enough books to focus on different characters. Everyone gets their time in the spotlight. Other books have focused on Jacen and Leia, Anakin, or Han Solo or others, but Jaina takes front and center here. 

The book is titled Dark Journey because Jaina is seriously flirting if not outright going over to the Dark Side most of the book. The death of Anakin and the unknown fate of Jacen has created two very strong Dark Side factories within her. She wants to take revenge on the Vong for Anakin and she is willing to do whatever she has to do to rescue Jacen. She frequently screws around with the memories of strangers and even her best friend and fellow Jedi, Lowbacca, to make them forget or uses the Force to manipulate their minds. She even asks to become Kyp's apprentice, knowing full well, that he has also been accused or in actuality uses the Dark Side. Jaina has even used Force Lightning, which I thought was only a Sith Power. 

I liked Jaina's battle with the Dark Side. Her and her two brothers have been fleshed out a lot, Jacen and Anakin in earlier installments, and now Jaina as well. It hasn't been an easy road for them. The authors involved in The New Jedi Order could have easily made the Solo kids White Hats that were completely good and always do everything right. Instead, they are all too human and fallible. Sometimes they do have a tendency to believe their own myths and that's when things usually go bad for them and they learn from it. 

The aspect that made this book unique was that Jaina and crew land into what feels like the filming of Game of Thrones. Tenel Ka's grandma is a lethal combo of Cersei Lannister and Olenna Tyrrell, the Queen of Thorns. Even though she is past her prime in age and is no longer queen, she still retains all the power behind the scenes and is willing to assassinate and deceive and manipulate in order to keep her family in power, along with who will make the best queen.

I have two complaints about Dark Journey. The real widescreen moments are not handled well. I mean, in this book the Vong invade and decimate the capital of the Republic, Coruscant, but I think the author devoted less than a page to that event. To me, the battle for Coruscant would be a CLIMATIC event, not a throwaway moment in which we just see a few main characters escaping. It wasn't even a battle! It was more like "OMG, the Yuzzhan Vong are here, peace out!". Not a word about its defense or any huge space battles. Just a panicked fleeing. 

It's not the only time Cunningham comes up short. Jaina is using her brains and science to construct a secret weapon to battle the Vong with. When it comes to actually revealing that weapon, she uses it in a minor skirmish in which the Vong lose only a few ships.  

It just seems like there is a LOT of buildup to what you think are going to be big space opera scenes but they are just glossed over. I get it, maybe this is meant to be a more personal journey. But even there, Jaina's Dark Side leanings manifest in her immature brat behavior and moments more like Mean Girls rather than true evil. I was like "oh, that was wrong" instead of "omg, that is evil!" 

One thing that I have found disappointing about the series is that Luke has not really had his own book yet. It seems like everyone else has. But from what I read on the blurb about Book 11: Rebel Dreams, he finally will get the main stage by returning to Vong occupied Coruscant by himself! I am looking forward to that. 

I liked Dark Journey probably more than it deserved mainly because the last book, Star By Star, was to me the lowpoint of The New Jedi Order series so far. It seemed to go on and on forever and it was a shame because what happened to Anakin and Jacen were such big moments. It could have been shortened by about 100 pages. 

This series has not been GREAT, but it is much better than the corrupt, disrespectful, deceitful and woke Disney Star Wars sequel movies. 

My Grade: B

Red Ants by Pergentino Jose

 

Red Ants

By Pergentino Jose

Translated by Thomas Bunstead
Published by Deep Vellum, 2020
Print Price: $14.95

Pergentino Jose's new story collection, entitled Red Ants, is the first literary work written in the Sierra Zapotec language and translated into English and I am wondering why I should care. I did not know what that language is but I assumed it was an indigenous language native to Mexico and I was right. Again, who cares? I mean just because it is the FIRST does not mean it's GOOD. 

Similarly, Jose's resume includes being a member of the Mexico20, some imaginary list of the best Mexican writers under 40 (There is and has been only ONE great Mexican writer). The author also seems to be a member of many elitist government organizations and takes welfare in the form of fellowships. He seems to be just the type of writer white liberal millenials would hail as a genius. If Jose was American, I am sure you would have seen "published in the New Yorker" in his bio. 

The rancor I feel towards this writer is because everything about him is a sham. Hailed as the next Carlos Fuentes, his writing is amateurish at best. The blurb on the back of the book even calls up the annoying specter of Gabriel Garcia Marquez! Please, don't sip this Kool-Aid.

Really the only good thing about these stories are that they are short. All of them come off as sketches or ideas for Twilight Zone episodes that never got fleshed out. In most of them you only have the barest of impressions about what is going on. And the writing itself is jarring and disconnected and can't seem to follow one idea for any length of time. Some might chalk this up to style, but I get the sense that the author is just awful and it is not intentional. 

From what I remember about the stories, which is very little, they seemed to involve lots of people trapped in dark spaces and not knowing how they got there. Or the protagonist is looking for someone and nobody knows where they are and then when they find them we still have no idea who they are or why they were being looked for. Some of them appear to be views of indigenous people's culture and they seem to go somewhere but where? It's almost as if Jose is like "hey, this sounds like a cool concept! I'm gonna write a story about it!....Well done with that, only took me 3 minutes tops. Masterpiece!" 

You get impressionist sketches of drug cartels, indigenous religious rites, and even terrorist recruitments but everything is filtered through the author's obscurity and lack of focus. 

This is a short book and the stories are all very brief so a lot of readers more dedicated than me could probably read it in one sitting, but any remembrance of its contents will probably be forgotten before you sit down to read your next book. 

MY GRADE: D-

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (Book Review)

A Tale of Two Cities

By Charles Dickens

Published by Barnes and Noble Classics, 2004

Price: $5.95

Everyone and their mother has heard the opening lines of this book: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." but I wonder how many people have actually ever READ this novel? It's kinda like Hamlet's "To be or not to be.....". Everyone knows where it comes from but not everyone knows what the actual context of the quote is. I am one of those ilk. This was my first time to read this novel. I'm creating something of a bucket list of novels I want to read before I die, and this was one of the many on my list. 

Looking at this novel and seeing it was published in 1859 made me think it was far removed from our time. I mean a year later America would be having its Civil War. How could this possibly relate to 2020?  Surprisingly, there were a lot of parallels thanks to the current lawlessness and identity politics denunciations sweeping the United States right now in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. I mean just look at the cover art of this book. That could be downtown Los Angeles!

Charles Dickens was an SJW in his own era. Fortunately, there was no television or internet back then. So he poured all his social justice inclinations into his fiction. Fiction, which to me at least, doesn't seem preachy. It's more like journalism of what actually was. 

A Tale of Two cities is about two families, both originally from France, but both currently calling England their home, who get caught up in the bloody madness of the French Revolution of the late 18th century.  The story starts in 1775 when Lucie Manette's father is released from the Bastille after 15 years of imprisonment. Lucie had thought he was dead because when you live in a tyranny you can be arrested without charges or a trial and be stuck in a dungeon for the rest of your days. Even though he suffers from PTSD, her father is able to resume a normal life as a doctor in his new homeland of England. Lucie had been spirited there as an infant by a business associate of her dad's. 

When she comes of age as a pretty young woman, Lucie becomes the center of two men's affections. Charles Darnay is a man she first meets because as a witness in a criminal trial focused on whether Darnay is a French spy. The other is one of Darnay's lawyers, the alcoholic ne'er do well Sydney Carton. Carton is a misanthrope who thinks he's wasted his life away with drinking and revel. He's not exactly marriage material. Lucie is much more attracted to the dashing and brave Darnay. Unfortunately, Darnay's past is going to drag the Manettes back to France during it's most chaotic and dangerous time. 

I'm no expert on the French Revolution, but what is on display in this work of fiction is pretty appalling. It reminds me a lot of the left wing movements that are currently trying to take over the country. Once the mobs get control of Paris and the military they begin to round up anyone they consider a traitor, mostly aristocrats, but more accurately, anyone that doesn't meet their standards of being a "Patriot". Anyone that does not support their cause in other words. Anyone who thinks for themselves and has a differing opinion. Rabble rousers like the villainous Madame Defarge who has been nursing a bloody grudge against the nobles, is able to finally unleash murder upon whoever she deems deserves it. Trials are conducted with no attention to law or justice, merely revenge and anger.

Dickens states that the mobs had to dismantle the systems of law in order to achieve what they wanted. It's not really any different now. The BLM movement wants to defund and dismantle the police. I watched a stream the other day in which the marchers were chanting "Law by law, the system will fall!" and then there's the story of marchers breaking down a private neighborhood gate and invading only to be confronted by armed homeowners who said they thought it was going to turn into the "storming of the Bastille". Mobs are dangerous and unpredictable. Once they cross the rule of law, anything goes. Anything can happen. 

According to Dickens, the Revolution occurred because the rich and powerful had no care for the middle class and the poor. In one scene from the book a noble's carriage runs over and kills a young girl and the noble could care less, has no remorse, offers to just give some coins to the parents. Were there some nice aristocrats in France who tried to help the common people? Probably, but they were few and far between. I think the French people had good reason to revolt, but not to take it to the bloody extremes they did. 

Today's protests seem more like people wandering the streets because they don't have anything better to do. The murder of George Floyd has become a t-shirt and now we just have people wanting attention, that like to scream and hurl insults at cops. Or clueless unemployed white liberals. But if they truly ever did overthrow our government, I think the end would be a lot like the French Revolution. What came after the left wing revolt was a reign of terror by the people and then, an absolute ruler, an EMPEROR for god's sake. The American Revolution, at least to me, is the exception to the rule, in which that which comes after revolt, is better than what came before. 

The Republic of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death. Wow, what a motto. The people in France were not free, they were not equal, they killed their brothers, and yes, the revolution died. 

This Barnes and Noble Classics edition had good endnotes to help you understand Dickens's more obscure historical references. 

My Grade: A-

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita 

By Vladimir Nabokov 

Published by Vintage, 2010

Ebook Price: $9.99

Middle aged Humbert Humbert has a problem. Ever since a failed sexual encounter with a young girl named Annabel when he was a youth, he has been attracted to prepubescent girls. For some reason he just has that Annabel fixed in his mind as his feminine ideal, no matter how old he gets. Over the years he does have affairs with women his age and even gets married to see if that will make his abnormal urges go away. Nothing works. He still fantasizes about what he calls "nymphets". 

When Humbert moves into a boarding house to finish work on writing a book, he finds out his new landlady has a 12 year old daughter that is right up his alley. Her name is Dolores Haze but she goes by other nicknames: Dolly, Lo, Lola....and of course, Lolita. Here at last is a girl that will make all his fantasies come true! If only Lolita is willing, and if she is, how can they conceal it from her omnipresent mother? When Lolita's mom confesses her love for Humbert, our protagonist sees an easy way into Lo's pants! I mean, if he's her stepfather, it would be very easy to molest her, right?

Like most people, I have heard the basic plot of Lolita through the years. It's one of those books that you are aware of even though you probably do not know anyone that has actually read it. Like 1984 or Frankenstein, it's ingrained in the culture. I remember when I was young and there was that famous shooting with Amy Fisher where she was called the Long Island Lolita. Sting references it in his song "Don't Stand So Close to Me". And then there's the Loli culture in Japan. So I knew this book was going to be about some kind of affair between a young girl and a much older man. 

I guess I just wasn't prepared for it to be a 12 year old. I mean, essentially, this is a novel where the "hero" or antihero or whatever you want to call him, is a PEDOPHILE. Once I understood this, my reading sensibilities went a little haywire. I mean, as I am reading, I can't figure out what I'm supposed to be thinking. I had finished reading a biography of Hitler about 2 months ago and even HITLER was a more likeable person than Humbert! I guess I see child molestation as a worse crime than murder and starting a world war. 

Is the actual character Lolita slutty? Yes. Does that give a middle aged man the right to have carte blanche with her? No. I was constantly repulsed by the subject matter of the book and the protagonist. I mean, at one point Humbert daydreams about having kids with Lolita and then molesting THEM as well! 

To me, it's a bit crazy that this book ever got published in 1955, being as that it glorifies and often humorizes the situation. There's no way this book would ever see the light of the day if Nabokov had written it in 2020. The only time we hear the truth out of Humbert's mouth is every once and a while he will hear Lolita crying in the next room after one of their sexual encounters. Only in fleeting moments does he even understand the irreparable harm he is doing to her psyche. 

The thing that kept me reading till the end was the writing itself. I can't deny that Nabokov is a great stylist. I never got BORED with the text. I've read some of his earlier works and liked them a lot more. I have no idea why he chose to devote himself to this story and I didn't want to research a lot about the background of its writing because I thought I'd run across spoilers. 

I don't think this is one of the greatest books written in the 20th century as most elites of the literary world do. I don't even really know if it's a classic. Is it interesting? Is it a good book? I guess. 

My Grade: B

King Lear by William Shakespeare (Book Review)

King Lear
By William Shakespeare
Published by Penguin Books
Price: $8

King Lear is old and wants to retire from ruling his kingdom. Well, he doesn't want to FULLY retire. He still wants all the pomp and respect of being a king without all the responsibilities. Kinda like Bill Gates stepping back from Microsoft and letting other people run it day to day. His plan is to divide his kingdom between his three daughters: Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. But Lear is a proud man and he divides the land according to how much the three sisters suck up to him. Goneril and Regan go full rump kissing and thereby gain his favor. As for Cordelia,  she just says she loves him without exaggeration and ostentation. This doesn't sit well with her father who promptly disinherits her and pawns her off on the King of France.

Lear just wants to chill with his 100 knights. Just party and hang out at Goneril and Regan's castles in a rotating schedule of a month each. Of course,  it costs a lot of money to feed and house such a retinue and the two sisters aren't feeling it. Besides, Lear is also showing signs of senility and bad temper and they're afraid they will have their powers taken away on a whim just like Cordelia was banished. Or worse, what if Lear gets in a bad mood and orders their arrest or execution? They begin to scheme to take away ALL of his power.

In a parallel shadow of the main plot, the bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester, one of Lear's nobles, hatches a plot to disenfranchise his legitimate brother, Edgar, from his father's graces and take his place as his heir.

Everywhere in King Lear, there is the theme of the young supplanting the old, of the children overthrowing the father. It reminds me a lot of Zeus and his brothers turning on and killing their father Cronus. It must be some primeval urge that goes back to the darkest recesses of humanity's memory. I can kinda see Goneril and Regan's point....but they go over the top when they decide to MURDER. I guess they think how can you reason with someone that is an absolute dictator? They felt threatened but at some point they go full on EVIL and take sick pleasure in all the bloodshed they order. They would agree with Kylo Ren's maxim: "Kill the past".

Another theme that really stuck out to me was relying too much on appearance and words. Judging the goodness of a person through flattery and blindness to truth. You can't reward someone or value them because they kiss your ass. It's better to value sincerity instead of surrounding yourself with sycophants. Even the king's fool can see everything that is happening! It's the two fathers, Lear and Gloucester, that seem to be the last ones to know what their children are capable of. What human beings are capable of when it comes to fear and power. Regan and Goneril remind me a lot of Kim Jong Un. They would be the type of people to forgo a normal shooting squad for their father and instead blow him away with a antiaircraft gun!

For all its darkness, King Lear has a great beauty to it, and comes very close to or exceeds the ancient tragedies of Greece. Sometimes I believe there is more of God in Shakespeare than the Bible. More wisdom in his plays than in any Buddhist scripture. What can I say? I am an idolater.

My Grade: A+

Persuasion by Jane Austen (Book Review)

Persuasion
By Jane Austen
Published by Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003
Price: $5.95

Anne Elliot was in love once 7 years ago and had even become engaged to the object of that love, a certain Frederick Wentworth. But at that time, her fiancé was just starting his military career, and a family friend and confidante, Lady Russell,  had talked her out of the engagement. Russell said that Wentworth had no prospects at the time and no money and that the future was too uncertain pertaining to him. Anne was still young and immature then at the age of 20 and not really strong enough to go with her own thoughts about the matter. So she caved. And has regretted it ever since.

Anne is now on the verge of spinsterhood at the ripe old age of 27 when Frederick, who is now a successful captain in the Royal Navy, comes back into her life.

This happens because of Anne's spendthrift father whose main occupation seems to be squandering the family's wealth. It's gotten so bad that the Elliots have had to move out of their own house, Kellylynch, and rent it out!  Their rentee is Admiral Croft, who is married to Frederick Wentworth's sister, which means Anne's lost love is going to be in the vicinity a great bit now. Anne still hasn't gotten over him, but she doesn't know what Frederick is thinking. Does he even still care about or remember her seven years after she broke off their engagement due to persuasion?

I've read three of Austen's other novels but this one has probably been my favorite. It's just so thin and efficient. It's a love story without getting sentimental and sappy with flowery bubblegum prose. It's matter of fact, streamlined, and subtle. I liked that because its all from Anne's viewpoint, we don't really find out what Wentworth thinks about her until the closing chapters. So even though the novel is not in first person the reader feels they ARE Anne, so it was cool to have some mystery and suspense in what is essentially a romance. I also loved how much emotion was conveyed just by situations and small details instead of dialogue. It was great how much power Austen had over her storytelling at the end of her life. I think she would have written some even greater works than those she left us.

I admit I had a bit of prejudice coming into this book because my view is that a lot of the stuff that Austen wrote about really has no significant bearing on the true realities of the life of the common man or woman of that time. That she was writing only about the dramas of the "elites". That's why I didn't like Mansfield Park. I mean, the whole conflict of it was about a group of young people putting on a scandalous play? While the poor were starving and working their fingers to the bone in the city?

So I was pleasantly surprised when one of the main cruxes of Persuasion were reversals of fortune. Anne's family is not as prestigious and rich as it once was due to incompetence. Anne rejects her former self that placed so much value on material wealth. Her family are the ones that are unenlightened scumbags. Her father judges EVERYONE based solely on looks and social status. And it disgusts Anne. She virtually does not exist to her family simply because they think she is plain.

I was really surprised by this and other social commentary that I found in the book. One of Anne's old schoolmates has fallen on hard times and is living in poverty and her family encourages her to not even associate with someone in that low of a state. But Anne stands by her friend. It was truly beautiful. Anne also has some points where she lays down a pre-feminist rant about how women are misperceived in her world.

Like I said, this is now my fave of all Austen's works that I have read. Northanger Abbey and Emma are the two I've yet to read.

My Grade: A

The Rise of the Roman Empire by Polybius (Book Review)

The Rise of the Roman Empire
By Polybius
Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert
Published by Penguin Classics, 1979
Ebook Price: $10.43

We live in an era when journalism is truly dead. Nobody is interested in causes or patterns or the truth. Nobody is interested in investigating or consulting sources. Lots of new stories are done based only on tweets or hearsay or rumors. Nobody has the time to check or verify anything. It's just constantly flowing information, with no differentiation between lies and facts. And the internet is infinite so there's no reason to condense or weed out the trivial. EVERYTHING is important.

We also live in an era where America and its ideals are waning and running out of energy. Its decadence and decay are apparent everywhere you look. The American flag is seen as a symbol of freedom no longer but of facism. People are shamed or even ATTACKED for showing pride in their country. I'm just glad I'm old enough that I won't have to see its true end. Only the beginnings of that end.

To me, the author of this book, Polybius (c.200-118BC) was what journalists USED to be like in America. He was very interested in getting the facts right. He tried to be as objective as he could be without letting his personal prejudices influence what he was writing about. He wanted to educate people about the world. He thought he was doing something important. He visited the places he wrote about instead of sitting in his office surfing the net. He was involved in the wars and politics of his day. He interviewed and knew people involved in the historical events he was depicting. Everything he was doing 2000 years ago is what the media should be doing now.

The main theme of The Rise of the Roman Empire was for Polybius to tell the world how Rome, an undistinguished city at the time, came to conquer what was then the known world. How it became the superpower of its time. He also wanted to document events to educate generations in hopes that they would find wisdom and inspiration to do the right thing at the right time through noting the actions of the leaders of Rome and Carthage.

Rome's rise is depicted mainly through the prism of the Punic Wars, a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage and their allies. The book begins with the origins of the first war and ends with the destruction of Carthage in the third. Along the way Polybius also informs us what was going on simultaneously in other parts of the Mediterranean, such as Egypt and Greece. Polybius strays from the Punic Wars because he saw this era as a time when the Mediterranean was an organic whole with each part having influence on each other through war and trade.

What I loved about this book is that Polybius was alive during parts of the history and was personally involved in the Punic Wars because he was really good friends with Scipio, one of the greatest Roman generals of all time. He was given access to people, sources, and lands to do his research.

I think Polybius's original work was about 40 volumes. This is merely a selection of the existing books. A complaint I have is what the editors or translator chose to include in The Rise of the Roman Empire. Scott-Kilvert does a really good job with the 1st and 2nd Punic Wars, but there is only about ONE PAGE covering the 3rd. I have no clue as to what happened to make the Romans totally destroy Carthage or even who was involved or what led up to it. But yet the translator wastes a lot of pages including events in Greece, Egypt, and even a long section about Polybius evening scores with a fellow history writer. I'm going to have to read another work or book to find out what went on in the Third Punic War. Very unfortunate choice of what to include and not include in this book.

Something else I liked about Polybius is that he knew he was writing about Rome in its prime. He believed that all governments descend into destruction on a long enough timeline. He was aware that he was living in Rome's Golden Age, before the decadence and insanity of it becoming an empire. Scipio was the opposite of Ceasar. He was not in the Punic Wars to crown himself king or emperor. He was serving Rome and always remembered it was a privelage to serve his city. He could very easily have seized power and done whatever he wanted. But at the conclusion of the wars, he quietly retired. Carthage too was in its prime. Everything and everyone needs a competitor to bring out the best in each other. So it was very interesting to see these two powers playing chess games through war and diplomacy.

To me, Polybius acheived his goals. I understood how Rome became the superpower of its time. And I also gained a lot of wisdom and insights into my OWN time and place. I think after World War 2 we were like Rome at the conclusion of  the Punic Wars. The world was its oyster for a time. But as soon as we didn't have a true toe to toe enemy with the collapse of Russia, the spiritual and material decay began to set in. Maybe China is our rival now but we owe them so much money and are so economically dependent on their manufacturing, we are more their slave than anything else.

My Grade: B+

Weathering With You by Makoto Shinkai (Book Review)

Weathering With You 
By Makoto Shinkai 
Translated by Taylor Engel 
Published by Yen On, 2019
Ebook Price: $9.99

18 year old Hodaka Morishima is on a ferry bound for Tokyo as the novel opens. He's making the same journey he did two and a half years ago. During that interval of time Tokyo has faced an unremitting rain that has covered 1/3 of the city in flood waters. Hodoka is coming to the city to get work and a place to live and one more very important thing. He's come to be reunited with a girl. Hina. He hasn't seen or talked to her since leaving. He's excited and scared about seeing her again and nervous about what he will say to her. Hodaka three flashes back to what happened during the summer almost three years ago.

At that time he had run away from his island home because of his abusive father and a stifling small town mindset that was killing him. He came to Tokyo to escape with some meager savings and no ID. He fell in with a small publisher of weird and paranormal news articles named Suga and is able to live at the office and write, edit, and seek out stories. One of the stories that Hodoka works on with Suga's niece, Natsumi, is about the urban legend of "Sunshine Girls", girls that can make skies clear in a limited area for a limited time by praying to the gods. Hodoka soon meets a real life Sunshine Girl named Hina. Both of them are at a loss for money, so they decide to open a Sunshine Girl website where they take requests for clearing up weather in return for payments. Unfortunately, there is a payment due from the gods for the use of Hina's powers.

I saw the anime movie this novel was based on about two weeks ago and absolutely loved it. I was so taken with it I next had to read the book. I will say this, that this is a rare instance where the movie is better than the book. Makoto Shinkai is a serviceable novelist but his talent is really more in anime. I thought the book was ok, but it didn't add a lot to the movie. You do get some insight into the thoughts of Suga, Natsumi, and other characters like Nagi.

The movie is really from Hodoka's point of view, but here in the novel we get some short bits written from the point of view of the supporting characters. I liked that. Learning more about Natsumi and Suga was great. It helps you understand the film better because we didn't get a lot of their background info.

One difference is that the book starts with the ending of the movie and then flashes back to the main story, so its basically a reversal of starting points. Something that didn't suffer in translation were the characters. They would be the same whether in print or film form. They're that strong. The thing I like about Makoto Shinkai is that he comes up with interesting concepts and then is able to convert them into interesting characters and beautiful visuals. I always look forward to his films.

The movie itself is in wide release at your local theater but if it's not on in your neck of the woods, reading this book is the next best thing. If the movie is on near you, seek it out before the book.

There aren't any illustrations in the book besides the cover so you're not really missing anything if you read it on Kindle like I did.

My Grade: B

The Farm by Hector Abad (Book Review)

The Farm
By Hector Abad
Translated by Anne McLean
Published by Archipelago Books, 2018
Price: $20

The house and farmlands of La Oculta in the Antoquia region of Colombia has been in the possession of the Angel family for almost 200 years. It's been hard work holding on to it through the dissolution of the utopian community it was once a part of, parceling of its once vast lands through generations, and then wars between drug dealers and soldiers from the Left and Right. Now it has become simply a matter of economics as to whether La Oculta will remain in family hands. The matriarch of the family, Anita, has been subsidizing the care and maintenance of the estate with her own money and that of her three children: Antonio, Pilar, and Eva. No one of these four characters has enough resources on their own to take care of it. They have to pool their money together. But as the novel opens, the mom has passed away, leaving the fate of La Oculta uncertain.

One thing to clear up, when I say three children, I do not mean they are YOUNG. The three siblings are all in their late 50s or early 60s and are technically senior citizens. They have their own lives and families, and,  except for Pilar, do not live at La Oculta. Antonio, the son, lives in New York with his longtime boyfriend and only visits on holidays. Eva has zero interest in the land and really only comes to it to see her family.

That's really the crux of the problem in this book. You have Pilar who has practically become the new owner of La Oculta and has taken on the role of their dead mother. She wants to to hang on to the land come hell or high water. Antonio loves the land and the house and has even devoted most of his life to writing about its history and his ancestors. But he lives so far away and is he willing to give up his life in America to come home for good? Eva is the complete polar opposite of the other two. She has no interest in the past of  her family or La Oculta. She dwells completely in the present. If it was up to her, she would sell it all and be done with it.

I really enjoyed this book. Because Antonio is writing a history, the reader gets a lot of insight not only into the fictional family that is the subject of the book, but also a primer in Colombian history. There are at times three running storylines. The present lives of the siblings, flashbacks to their personal histories, and also Antonio's recounting of their ancestors which also gradually takes on a fictional mode instead of recounting facts. I thought it was great how Abad was able to juggle these different perspectives. It never got confusing because each chapter is titled by the name of one of the kids so you always know who is speaking, who is perceiving.

Abad did a really good job of introducing his world to a Colombian illiterate like me. I never felt culturally lost or confused. Even though the setting was a country I know very little about, the writing was so good that I could see it visually and understand the culture emotionally. Anne McLean's translation is also probably a big part of this as well. I felt at home in Antioquia, in La Oculta. I felt at home with the characters. And just because this book is very realistic, do not think that it is barren of some very beautiful language.

I would definitely read another work by this author.

My Grade: B+

The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories by Henry James (Book Review)

The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories
By Henry James
Published by Penguin Classics, 2017
Print Price: $10

I've never been the biggest Henry James fan. He writes beautifully and has a masterful control of English. In some ways he reminds me more of an impressionist poet instead of a prose novelist. Much like a poet he is very often not clear on what he is saying and it's up to the reader to connect the dots. I think the only other work I had read before this book was his novel The Ambassadors.

These are "ghost stories" I suppose. There's no gore here or people getting their heads chopped off or clawed hands reaching for frightened women or white sheeted phantoms rattling chains. No, James is way more subtle than that.

His main schtick is just for ghosts to appear....and they just stand there....and just stare at people.....

And they're not scary looking per se....they might be a bit paler than normal, and for some reason the characters get scared of them, but its not like tentacles are coming out of their head or they have fangs or anything. I can't really remember them even threatening any of the flesh and blood people in the stories. James thinks their PRESENCE is enough. More along the lines of Asian horror with its eerie sounds and atmosphere.

To me, the stories in this collection, for the most part,  just didn't work. James expends a lot of prose capital hyping the ghosts and building the characterization and very rarely is the payoff at the end worth the 30 pages that have come before....After reading over a 100 pages of the longest story, The Turn of the Screw, I was left thinking ok, I THINK I understand the ending, but not really. I KINDA understand the characters but not very clearly. To me, that's the problem with James. Yes, he's a great stylist and his sentences shine with a crystalline beauty, but underneath I think he doesn't really know what he's doing.

There are some good stories here. My faves were "Sir Edmund Orme" and "The Friends of the Friends".  "Orme" was about a young man who wishes to marry a girl but there is a phantom figure that is constantly her companion who can only be seen by the man and the girl's mother. "Friends" is a mysterious tale of two people that have seen ghosts but yet cannot seem to be in the same place at the same time to meet each other and talk about their common experiences.

Are these stories worth reading? A few of them. But "Turn of the Screw" which is probably his most famous story was a lot of meh to me.  Most of the tales could have been written in half the pagecount and been more effective.

My Grade: B-

Unfreedom of the Press (Book Review)

Unfreedom of the Press
By Mark R. Levin
Published by Threshold Editions, 2019
Price: $28

We all know the press hates Donald Trump and Republicans and they LOVE the Democrats and the SJW's. That's just a fact. Do you really need to read a book to understand that? Maybe?

Mark Levin believes that the press is biased and is a ghostly shadow of what it once was. Namely, a vital part of the American nation. It was instrumental in founding our country. It was "a bulwark of liberty, civil society, and republicanism". The purpose of free speech and a free press was to "nurture minds, challenge ideologies, share notions, inspire creativity, and to advocate and reinforce America's founding principles". Now its about how big Kim Kardashian's cultural appropriation.  Or about a baker refusing to make a cake portraying two men sodomizing each other.

In seven chapters, Levin lays out his case....KINDA. His main points? The media and the press are dominated by liberal progressives. The press of the founding father's time would not recognize the press of today. The press serves the Democratic Party and is anti-Trump. Donald Trump is wrongly held up as a threat to free speech and a free press. If the press doesn't have a story to report on, they make one up. The New York Times, the guardian of liberalism and morality, censored stories about the Holocaust and the Ukraine famine and continues to be anti-Semitic. Trump did not collude with the Russian Government. Some past Democrats actually HAVE colluded with foreign governments.

I have to say that I was a lifetime Democrat and voted for Obama in his first term. Sometime during his first term I began to become disillusioned the with Dems and last year for the first time I voted in a Republican primary. I pretty much believe that I will be voting for the Republican party the rest of my life at this point, but I still consider myself an independent.

I agree with all of Levin's main points. It's his execution that is lacking. I would say 90% of this book is actually quotes from other writers. And by QUOTES I mean not just sentences, entire PARAGRAPHS, in some cases, entire PAGES! Has the man never heard of paraphrasing? I mean he might have one or two sentences and then he will go on for 1-2 pages of quotes, barely framing or commenting on the original sources. And it is like that for the ENTIRE book. He should have listed himself as the EDITOR of the book instead of the author! Because in the end this is really a book of quotations with topic chapters lazily organizing the quotes. What's really bad is that at the closing epilogue of the book, Levin actually quotes HIMSELF from the introduction! I mean the guy is so lazy he can't even paraphrase himself. Even a dumb college millennial knows that if you turn in a research report with more quotes than original writing, you're going to make an F!

I don't think he went FAR ENOUGH in calling out the press and the media. Another issue I had is that he never really puts the fault on the American people. I mean, if you are dumb enough to be manipulated by the media, I think you DESERVE it. Who goes to these mainstream media sites and BELEIVES everything they read or see? In the end it is up to each free individual to decide what is true or not. EVERYONE has an angle, not matter who it is. EVERY media site right or left is trying to manipulate you. I guess Levin states that newspapers OPENLY took sides back in the old days and that the two sides were pretty evenly divided. Don't know if that's actually provable.

The media and the press to me aren't the REAL enemy. It's the internet and those that control it through advertising dollars. Mainly Google and Facebook. They're the ones that have reduced journalism to what it now is: Listing a story about Cardi B throwing her wig into a concert crowd ABOVE Iran breaking its uranium enrichment limits. Something he also doesn't bring up is that newspapers used to be locally owned and now they are owned by corporations or politically active billionaires along with tv and radio stations, and movie studios thrown in for good measure.

One section that I enjoyed and was NEW knowledge was the part about "pseudo events" which was an idea originated by Daniel Boorstin. I've read some books by that author but had never heard of his book Pseudo Events. Basically, when the press doesn't have anything to write about, they MAKE up an event, which in turn multiplies into other pseudo events. For instance, a sports writer has nothing to write about, so he makes up a story that Kevin Durant MIGHT pick a new team to sign with today.....a non event since it is not know who he is going to so sign with. So then he might write another story speculating on which team he would be a good fit for, then another story etc.

Levin to me has compiled a book about something anyone with common sense can figure out. I guess a slavering right winger might digest this book ravenously. A left winger isn't going to read it. So maybe this book is written for dumb independents? Like someone that can't find the mental stamina to connect the dots of how corrupt the media and press is? I mean, isn't it APPARENT?

Does stringing pages and pages of long quotes from other people's works somehow count as persuasion? This is perhaps the laziest written book I've ever read.

Grade: F 

The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds (Book Review)

The Quickening Maze
By Adam Foulds
Published by Penguin Books, 2009
Print Price: $15

The time is 1837 England and the poet John Clare has been committed to an asylum by friends and family for spells of depression, lunacy, and violence. Most of the time he is sane, but on occasion he thinks he is other people like Lord Byron, and sometimes sees and speaks to his childhood love, now long dead. He does still write poems when the mood strikes him but his popularity passed decades ago and his style is out of fashion and nobody cares about his works.

Alfred (Pre-Lord) Tennyson arrives at the asylum seeking help for his depressed brother Septimus, but could also qualify as a patient himself, suffering as he is from the death of his closest friend. Tennyson's arrival causes quite the stir in the establishment's owner, Matthew Allen, and his family. They are excited to have a young poet around, even though his first works have bombed. Especially enthralled is young Hannah Allen who has all the romantic notions of a young and handsome poet running through her mind. And Alfred doesn't disappoint. He's brooding in all the right ways.

The Quickening Maze isn't a book that is powered by plot. Its strength is in the characters. Foulds does a great job showing the inner workings, longings, and frustrations of its cast. John Clare is trying to separate his past from his present, or in some cases surrendering to them both at the same time. Alfred Tennyson is attempting to come to terms with the death of his best friend and figuring out where his poetry will take him. Hannah wants to fall in love and get married or get married and fall in love or something along those lines. Matthew Allen thinks he is doing good work but feels unsatisfied and thinks maybe his talents are being wasted.  Other supporting characters such as the mad Margaret, who sees angels and feels she is a messenger of God, are given rich treatment as well.

The great thing about a work of fiction that is based on fact is that it makes you want to investigate and see what parts of the story actually happened. It also got me interested in reading Tennyson and Clare. Of course everyone has heard of if not read poems by Tennyson, but Clare is rather neglected. While I have heard his name, I've never read one poem by him. So a book like this reignites interest in authors that might have fallen by the wayside.

I enjoyed the book. Once I figured out it wasn't going to have a lot of plot but instead was going to focus on character interactions and motivations, it was a nice read. Foulds gives the story the "feel" of a 19th century novel with great atmosphere. It also gave the reader a taste of what was considered mental health facilities and treatments in 1837. In other words, practically ZERO treatment except confinement, abuse, and ignorance for those most severely afflicted. For those that were more "harmless", a lifetime of meaningless drifting from day to day and being kept out of trouble.

I felt Hannah was the weakest of the cast because she was so stereotypical of the women of that time period. It seemed like she fell out of a Jane Austen novel, she was so obsessed with a figment of her imagination and her desire to just get married. Besides her hollow character, the rest were intriguing and interesting.

My Grade: B+

Common Sense by Thomas Paine (Book Review)

Common Sense
By Thomas Paine
Published by Amazon Digital Services, 2017
Ebook Price: Free with Amazon Prime

Written a few months before the Declaration of Independence, Common Sense was a pamphlet that was meant to ready the Colonies for a war with England. Thomas Paine lays out his argument using "common sense" and reason.

Paine believed that the Colonies had outgrown their "Mother Country" and that it was time to break loose and be its own nation. According to him, we were under the thumb of the King and being abused and used for his own ends. There was no longer any good happening under his rule. The king was just getting us into foreign wars that we had nothing to do with and no stake in.

The author thought the three reasons a government should exist is for security, freedom, and especially the protection of religious liberties. England had failed miserably at the first two. What could England do to protect the colonies? They were thousands of miles away. And since the King's power was absolute, he WAS the law and could take away any rights at any time.

For those colonists that were wavering in resolve and wanting to reconcile with Britain, Paine argued that they had already tried more peaceful means to solve their problems. He also believed that the fight for independence was going to happen sooner or later. It's just a natural progression throughout history that colonies at some point want their freedom. It's better to get it over with.

Common Sense was something I'd always heard about in my American History classes in high school and college but I bet most people are like me and have never read it. I didn't even have an idea what it was about except knowing that it had to do with the American Revolution.

It was an interesting read and I never got bored or wanted to put it down but a lot of the information was, like the title, common sense. Of course kings are the bane of freedom and always have been. Of course we need a more representative government to curb tyranny. Of course colonies always break away from their origin countries. But I'm sure living in those times where kings were the norm, these ideas were NOT easily apparent. Democracies were a radical idea way against the grain. So it took someone like Thomas Paine to broach these subjects to the public and give reasons, propagandized as they were, for breaking from England.

I'm sure the founders of our country would be appalled by how many foreign wars and military engagements we've been involved in in the past 100 years. That's one of the things that really stood out to me in this book. That the founders didn't want to get involved in European wars. They wanted to take care of their own country and that was enough. Paine would be very happy that we are the #1 economy in the world because that was his vision. For our power to be economic, not necessarily military.

Worth reading if you're into American History but in the end its a political tract.

Just an added note: With Amazon Prime, you can get the Kindle version of this book PLUS the Audible version for free!

My Grade: B