The 306 Greatest Books #157 - Brave New World

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.  This book can be found on the BBC, Observer, and My Book Lists.

Brave New World can be pictured as the original dystopian-future novel. Written in 1931, Brave New World envisions a world 600 years in the future where the principles of Henry Ford, of the Model T fame, have been taken to the extreme with human beings being produced on assembly lines and natural birth almost all but eliminated. It is definitely a unique view on the future I had not anticipated. Having seen many dystopian movies and read other dystopian novels this was interesting to go back and look at what the future looked like from a 1930's perspective. The "advanced" technology is exactly as you would envision 1930's "advanced" technology to be, kind of steam-punkish, not the technology of today. And it is less technologically advanced as more biologically advanced. In this future they have perfected making a society were nobody wants more in their station of life, by making sure people manufactured for their particular station. This means that many people are dumbed-down to feel better in more menial tasks and some are allowed to excel beyond these menial tasks. The story shows us how a kid who grew up in the "savage lands", a reservation exempt from this "utopia", would feel in such a land and how this utopia. Although referred to by the derogatory term of "Savage", I believe Huxley's point was to portray him as one of us thrust into this "utopia" of sorts and how we would feel in such a world. I would say my only major gripes with the novel was his depiction of women, who were essentially relegated to being sex-hungry, mindless, pieces of meat added as something for the main character to "deal" with, not as characters in their own right. But other than that the story was intriguing, wholly engrossing, and flowed nicely. I breezed through the novel much quicker than I was ever anticipating. I would definitely place this on my recommend list.

The 306 Greatest Books #156 - Leaves of Grass

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. This book can be found on the Norwegian Book List.

I jumped into Leaves of Grass expecting Thoreau, because I love Thoreau. But alas, I have discovered Whitman seems to be more akin to Emerson, at least in my opinion. Since there are so many versions of Leaves of Grass, I chose to read a reprinting of the original 1855 edition, not the numerous updated and expanded editions that Whitman came out with afterwards. I had high hopes for the book because I do enjoy reading poetry but Leaves of Grass started off on a sour note for me. The preface to the story was practically nonsensical. I made the mistake of attempting to start the book while being very tired, however nothing made any sense and I put it down. I waited to start the book another day and I was able to understand more of it, but the story didn't follow what I was expecting from a book entitled "Leaves of Grass". The preface was about America, and poets, and how great poets are, and it was weird. Turns out Whitman had a bit of an ego. Finally, we delve into the actual poetry and I found snippets of lines that I loved, like this stanza:

"Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself."

But overall the poem seemed like a massive list of things Whitman has seen. He lists various occupations, and various types of faces, and different types of people he has seen, and it's all a bit much without any real story to go along with it. I appreciate his views on the world, about how he felt men and women were equal (as far as I could tell) even in the 1800's. I liked when he had story threads sprinkled here and there in the poem but it wasn't enough to maintain my attention. When I read stories that become a bit hard to follow, I tend to mentally wander and I had to go back multiple times throughout this to gather what was being said. I would say that this was a poem that one needs to read multiple times to fully comprehend, however I don't think I could go back and do that again.

The 306 Greatest Books #155 - Scoop

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. This book can be found on the Observer Book List.

Scoop was not what I was expecting, however I was pleasantly surprised. The story is set up like a 1930's/1940's comedy movie with several people having the same last name getting all shuffled together in different circumstances. The main part of the story dealt with a naturalist/country bumpkin being employed as a war correspondent in the fictional country of Ishmaelia. The country was embroiled in unrest, and had been plagued by an influx of reporters. The story, though was surprisingly funny. I laughed out loud at several points in the story and in general greatly enjoyed it. My only issue with the story was the racism that seemed to be spread throughout the story. It definitely felt like a period piece including the racism of the time, but I had hoped for more. The country of  Ishmaelia was located somewhere within northern Africa and felt like a caricature of an African country instead of a legitimate location. Even though I enjoyed the book, it didn't really feel like a "great work of literature". It felt like pulp fiction that one reads and then forgets about. Overall, I would say that the story was enjoyable but forgettable.  

The 306 Greatest Books #154 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. This book can be found on the BBC and My Book Lists.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth and final Harry Potter book on my 100 greatest book lists. Up until this point, all of the Harry Potter books have been on the BBC Book list, which was chosen by a UK popularity vote in 2003. This also tells you why some of the other Harry Potter books did not make the cut, since they were not published by that point. Looking at the BBC Book List, the first 21 books have been ranked according to popularity with only one book per author appearing in the top 21. That is the reason books 22, 23, and 24 are all Harry Potter with this book taking the prize at number 5. So, by popular vote, book 4 was chosen as the best of the first four books of the series and I whole heartily agree with them.

Rowling has moved beyond the issues that plagued the first two books and worked this book into a fantastical masterpiece that will survive long into the future. The plot is riveting and the pace of the book is remarkably easy to flow through. The language used helps it to stay in the "teen lit" category but that just means that more people can enjoy it, it is not a knock to the content. The pattern of the novels was also mixed up a bit for this one, where the quidditch matches which were used as the background events helping to propel the finale of the story forward were discarded for an overarching Olympics type event. This tournament resulted in some real stakes for the characters where not everyone was left unscathed. It made the books very suspenseful and very difficult to put down. To top it off I had not seen this movie for several years, perhaps not even since it came out, so the overall plot and the surprise twist at the end completely caught me off guard. Needless to say I loved it and this is by far my favorite of the Harry Potter novels.

The 306 Greatest Books #153 - One Hundred Years of Solitude

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This book can be found on the Norwegian, Observer, BBC, and My Book Lists.

I found myself constantly comparing One Hundred Years of Solitude to Marquez's other work on the list that I read almost 12 years ago, Love in the Time of Cholera. You can definitely get a feeling for Marquez's style between the two books. I have to say though, that between the two, Love in the Time of Cholera was a much easier book to get in to, but One Hundred Years of Solitude was the more impactful. To sum it up One Hundred Years of Solitude was fascinating, horrifying, hilarious, depressing, intriguing, and by the end, I couldn't put it down. The story is about a fictional South American town named Macondo that was founded by the couple José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula Buendía. Within the story we follow the development of the Buendía family, and despite how large or small the town gets, eventually turning into a thriving metropolis, we never really feel that because of the focus on this family. However, the family mirrors the effects of the town; as the town grows, so does the family, as the town shrinks, so does the family. One of the first things we learn about the family though is that there are issues with the family, specifically incest, which comes up again and again, which is one of those things that is rather horrifying in the story. The story, though, is about cycles, and how everything changes, yet everything stays the same. 

One of the hardest parts of the story to get through was the names of the characters. The story was written where time kind of bounced all over. Even the first sentence of the book begins with an illusion to what would happen halfway through the narrative. But the names of the characters were all either identical or very, very similar, making keeping track of who was who extremely difficult at times. By the end I still couldn't remember who was who's daughter/grandmother/aunt. But it works in the context of the story. The Buendía family is constantly making the same mistakes, constantly rehashing the same issues, through several generations, and by renaming their kids after either the patriarch José Arcadio or Aureliano (I believe there was at least 22 Aurelianos mentioned by the end of the story), it got to be rather confusing. This was not an easy book to read because of that. I could only read about 20 pages a night because I kept having to go back and rereading to figure out who was who as time slowly marched on through the story, bouncing back and forth as it went. The chapter breaks generally covered a different person within the generations as they progressed through life as well. So by the time I got to the end of the story, I immediately wanted to jump back to the beginning to see how it all tied together. This is a definite reread story, to catch all the hints about later parts of the story in the earlier sections. It is a story about time, where time doesn't seem to be happening. It is a fascinating tale and a definite one on my must read list, but it is work to get through, if you want to get everything out of it.