Challenge Wrap-Up!

The end of the year brought the end of two challenges in which I was participating...and I'm happy to say I finished them both, right in the nick of time.

First, the Everything Austen hosted by Stephanie @ Stephanie's Written Word. This was the first ever challenge I signed up for, and I was pleased with my choices. Originally, I had intended to split the six requirements evenly between books and movies, but I quickly learned that I enjoy Austen much more on screen than on the page. Plus, my stack of books is never-ending and movies were faster to get through.

Originally I picked:

1. The BBC's Pride & Prejudice mini-series
   
2. Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley (to compare)
   
3. Becoming Jane with Anne Hathaway
4. The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
5. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (because I remember nothing about it from senior year summer reading)
6. Austenland by Shannon Hale

I ended up doing these:

1. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (the only book I read, and it was more than enough)
2. The BBC'S Pride & Prejudice
3. Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley
4. Becoming Jane film
5. The Jane Austen Book Club film
6. Lost in Austen film/mini-series

I hadn't seen any of the films, and I ended up enjoying them all. The BBC's was just too classic to not like. The characters were perfectly cast, and I was entertained hour after hour. The other P&P was alright, as was Becoming Jane, but nothing too memorable. I looooved The Jane Austen Book Club, and I never expected to! I thought it had a great group dynamic and I loved how different all the characters were. Plus, Marc Blucas. Lost in Austen was equally as entertaining; so creative and witty! Those three hours flew by. Occasionally I've thought I should read all of Austen's novels just to do it, but I think this challenge told me it'd just be a waste of time. The books aren't going to stand out for me—it'll be the visuals of movie versions that I remember. Great challenge!

The other challenge I completed was my own: the Back To School Reading Challenge. I started this challenge mostly so I could re-read some of these great classics from high school that I remember nothing about. You know, those books you can easily discuss because most people have read them some point in their lives. I kinda rushed finishing this one with easy books I knew I had at home and could read over Christmas, so I never got around to reading anything completely new to me. I'd like to do that at some point, but with the constant influx of new books that I have, it might be hard to get around to.

For this challenge, I read:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (last read in 1999)
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (last read in 2002)
3. A Separate Peace by John Knowles (last read in 2000)
4. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (last read in 1998)

I was hoping to get something new and profound out of these books reading them the second time around but for the most part, I didn't. I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn the first time I read it and it quickly became my favorite book ever, and it still is, so that one has kept it's magic. I think I had a bit of a deeper understanding of To Kill a Mockingbird this time around. I enjoyed it more as a standalone novel instead of having that mentality that it's "required reading." I read The Outsiders mostly just to refresh my memory on the story, but it's a pretty simple read. And A Separate Peace was more boring this time around. I know we had to analyze the hell out of in high school and I liked it then. It wasn't bad this time, I just didn't get much out of it when I didn't have to participate in open discussion about it every few chapters. I'd still like to get around to Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and a few others, but we'll see.

Be sure to read Sal's challenge picks on this blog and check out what the other participants of our Back To School Reading Challenge reviewed from the Mr. Linky on the original challenge post!

Back to School: Greaser, Socs, and Prep School

I waited to read my last two titles for the Back to School Challenge until I went home for Christmas, because all of my old school books are there. I thought reading two books with an average reading level of about the 7th grade would take me two days max, but I didn't factor in that I am constantly busy when I'm at home. So, ever the procrastinator, I crammed in my two books my last day and a half at home and completed the Back to School Challenge with two titles I generally enjoyed the first time around: A Separate Peace and The Outsiders.

John Knowles' A Separate Peace seems to me like a somewhat more (though not much more) plot-driven Catcher in the Rye. It's supposed to be that classic coming-of-age story you read in high school. Gene is the smart kid attending Devon, a New Hampshire prep school at the beginning of World War II. He's best friends with Phineas, aka "Finny," who is pretty much the antithesis of Gene. Finny is a star athlete, outgoing, and a natural leader. He has a way of smooth-talking his way out of any situation as he casts a sort of spell over everyone he encounters. Though Gene is by no means disliked nor unathletic, he has a whole nest of insecurities when standing next to Finny...dare it be envy? During a summer session at Devon, all of Gene's pent-up emotions finally blow up during a male-bonding sort of game invented by Finny, causing an incident that leaves Finny disabled and Gene questioning his thoughts and actions.

I was hoping I would get more out of this book reading it now, almost ten years later, but I can't say I did. I completely understand the point of it all and the latent feelings that one may or may not choose to claim as real, but I can't say that I personally relate to the story. I can understand why it's a must-read in high school—it deals with a lot of issues that need to be explored, picked apart, and analyzed. Knowles does an excellent job of getting into a character's head, even when the character is not quite sure what's going on in there. The setting subtly lends to the chaos in the characters' heads; they are quickly approaching draft age, and their future is uncertain; the war presents a looming fear that Gene is (perhaps subconsciously) desperate to disrupt. Neither Finny nor Gene are willing to accept themselves and their role within their surroundings, but ultimately, Gene has to try to understand and (most importantly) make peace with his actions and their consequences. Inner- and outer- war and peace...that about sums it all up. It sure does have plenty of themes and symbols that English teachers seem to love.

The Outsiders, I read even longer ago, in the 7th grade. In reading it now, I find even less to analyze than I did when I was 12. Where A Separate Peace seemed to be written primarily for analysis, The Outsiders seemed to be written as a straight-up story, one you could absorb and retell without depriving the story of any of its subtleties. The writing isn't that great—no extraordinary use of literary techniques (probably because S.E. Hinton was a mere fifteen when she wrote this)—but it has great character development. Ponyboy Curtis is the story's narrator. He's a 14-year-old "Greaser," what he describes as one of the two types of people (the others being "Socs"). Greasers are hoodlums—they steal, smoke, and start fights. The Socs pretty much do the same thing, the only difference being that they're middle-class and have money. Therefore, Socs seem to get away with anything, while Greasers are constantly on the run and watching their backs. Ponyboy lives with his two older brothers, Darry and Sodapop, and their gang serves as a kind of extended family. He's intelligent, athletic, and, most notably, thoughtful. Ponyboy's head is always in the clouds. His loyalty to his gang is unyielding, but the fighting and hatred just start feeling kind of pointless to him. After all, Greaser or Soc, a guy's still just a person with his own thoughts and feelings. 

I wouldn't exactly suggest this one for English class analysis, but maybe that's the only way you can require a kid to read a book. And this one should definitely be necessary. While the details seem dated (it was written in 1967), the situations are not. It's thought-provoking to the audience as Ponyboy deals with a whole range of experiences and emotions. His constant internal battle between right and wrong gives him a sense of vulnerability as opposed to some of the other Greasers. He's a very real character, and we get to see all of his confusion, all of his ups and his downs, as he struggles with his environment. The Outsiders is a story I finish without needing to analyze, because the writing is so straightforward that I got everything out of it the first time around.

Back to School: A Victorian mockery

For my final Back to School challenge book, I decided to do somewhat of a culmination with a book that embraces and mocks the Victorian novels that I've focused on as of recent. John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman is an amusing and wild ride in 1860s England. The omniscient, ever-present, and ever-involved narrator watches from a distance of a hundred years and amusingly comments on the characters' decisions, their historical placement, and how things would have been different if they were born later.

Though I haven't read it, I could only feel that Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter was alluded to in that by being the French Lieutenant's woman he means whore, not wife. And so as Sarah Woodruff - said 'woman' - wears her melancholy for her lost Frenchman as Hester Prynne wears her scarlet A around town. People gossip (and there's plenty of gossip in this story) about Ms Woodruff and her beginnings, her love affairs, her dark personality. She's a mysterious figure, so much so that she captures the attention of on Charles Smithson, a young fossil collecting scientist quite interested in Darwin's theories. Charles, with his painfully common surname, can't get Ms Woodruff out of his mind, even though he's engaged to the even more common, though quite wealthy, Earnestina ('Earnest', the importance of being!) Freeman ('Free man'!), a woman who is controlled more by hysterics and perhaps by the upbringing by her parents.

Slowly through Charles we discover Ms Woodruff's history, some through other media, mostly through Sarah herself. She talks about why she is so sullen, longing for her lost Varguennes (anyone know where this name could come from?), who as she found out was married to another woman when they had their 'affair de coeur'. And now she is married to her suffering. This makes Charles ever so sympathetic with her plight that his interest becomes more than a fascination.

There are some wild plot twists, and some plot changes of heart - as the narrator tells us that this is the way that things could have happened if the characters so chose to do one thing instead of the other. So in essence there is no ending but a serious of simultaneous ones, neither of which should technically win out, even though the narrator is fearful that 'The only way I can take no part in the fight is to show two versions of it. That leaves me with only one problem: I cannot give both versions at once, yet whichever is second will seem, so strong is the tyranny of the last chapter, the final, the "real" version. ...I extract a florin, I rest it on my right thumbnail, I flick it, spinning, two feet into the air and catch it in my left hand.' And that is how it is determined the order in which the stories are told. To chance, to randomness, to god's willfulness.

It's a trick like this that makes The French Lieutenant's Woman a beloved work of literature; for the narrator is one of the most self-aware narrators I have ever read, one that is more like a character than a person relating a story. For instance:

The French! Varguennes!

...[Charles] wondered where she was; and a vision of her running sodden through the lightning and rain momentarily distracted him from his own acute and self-directed anxiety. But it was too much! After such as day!

I am overdoing the exclamation marks.

This self-effacing, humorous last remark just reveals one of the moments that the narrator understands how narratives work, what readers are expecting and what they need. As Charles and Sarah begin something romantic, the narrator writes: '[Charles] stood like a man beneath a breaking damn, instead of a man above a weeping woman...Their eyes remained on each other's, as if they were both hypnotized. She seemed to him - or those wide, those drowning eyes seemed - the most ravishingly beautiful he had ever seen. What lay behind them did not matter. The moment overcame the age.'

I'll leave you with this pondering (and the amusing Simpsons reference to the film version): 'Death is not in the nature of things; it is the nature of things. But what dies is the form. The matter is immortal.' What follows in that paragraph seems quite an interesting take on Darwinism and storytelling in general.

Back to School: Idealism in the slums

I last read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn back in the 11th grade. I remember absolutely loving it, to the point that it immediately and has subsequently held the top position on my list of favorite books. But junior year of high school was seven years ago, and I couldn't remember exactly why I loved it so much, so it was time for a re-read. I was a bit nervous that it wouldn't hold up to my memory, but I am happy to say that it was just as good the second time around.

Betty Smith's classic is the coming-of-age story of Francie Nolan, a young girl living in Brooklyn in the pre-WWI 20th century. It's the Brooklyn you can only read about—an immigrant population, tenement housing in Williamsburg, penny-pinching, and all the stores "down the street" (such as, "Francie, run to the butcher/apothecary/grocer down the street..."). Francie possesses the perfect blend of her mother Katie's realism and her father Johnny's idealism. Katie works as a janitor in their apartment building in exchange for rent, and Johnny is a singing waiter with a bit of a drinking problem. Along with her brother Cornelius ("Neely" for short), Francie struggles to remain idealistic amongst poverty and the normal ups and downs of life.

This was the first story I ever read that really got me into a style of novel that I love; it's not so much a book with a plot, rather a portrait of a life and a time. To enjoy this kind of novel, you must love the characters, and it is easy to love the Nolans. Once I started reading, I immediately remember why I loved it so much; Francie is one of the only characters I've ever read that I immediately understand. I get her, and I get her way of thinking. She's thoughtful, in a contemplative way. She has a kind of optimistic realism about her, and she finds joy and beauty in the smallest things. Her character perfectly illustrates what it means to grow up. 

Rather than rattle on and on, I'm going to keep this review short and leave you with some of the passages that exemplify what I mean and why I love this book. Out of 31,841 ratings on Goodreads, its average rating is 4.24 out of 5. That says something. Just read it.

"Don't say that. It's not better to die. Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there from the grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong."

"Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!"

"Dear God, let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be happy; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well-dressed. Let me be sincere- be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost."

Back to School: The "grotesque" of Southern Gothic

My main reason for starting the Back to School Reading Challenge was to give myself an opportunity to read all of those classics from high school I remember nothing about. I haven't read Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird since the 8th grade (and I shudder to think that was 10 whole years ago), and it's very different than I remember.

To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer in 1961 and even earned Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 (yes, she is still alive!). The novel takes place in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression (1935, or so). It's the kind of setting that defines the story and all of the people in it. The story is told from the perspective of 6-year-old Scout Finch as she lives and learns about life and reality for a couple of years. It's a coming-of-age story, just using a much younger age than usual. Scout and her brother Jem (four years her senior) are the two children of a widowed defense lawyer, Atticus. The story begins with the childhood innocence of a new summer as the Finch kids and their friend Dill try to coerce Boo Radley, the town recluse, out of his house. Over the next two years, however, Scout and Jem learn more about the real world than they expected as Atticus defends a black man against a rape charge in a racially charged Southern town.

I don't know if anyone else likes to do this but when I'm reading books like this one that have such renown, I like to Wikipedia- and SparkNotes-search them so I get the full picture—the history, the context, the little-known facts. This is one of those classics that has so much behind the story that it'd seem a shame to simply read the book without Google-searching it as well.

I love Scout. It is hard to fathom that what you're reading is supposed to be the voice of a six-year-old, but I don't think the language used requires a completely realistic interpretation. Lee uses a child's voice to get her point across which is this: children aren't naive just because they don't know the way of the world yet. They notice behaviors; they notice language; they notice injustice. The unique thing about Scout (and Jem) is that they each have a mind of their own. They notice things, but instead of just accepting actions and behaviors as the "way things are," they question what they see. They ask "why?" and they form their own sets of beliefs. 

I read another reviewer state, "[Scout] wanted to be a person first and then a girl," which is a mentality I am sure stemmed from the kids' relationship with their father. Atticus is older than most other fathers, more serious, less gloat-worthy (the Finch kids have never been able to brag about his shot or athletic ability). In the two or so years spanned in this novel, Jem and Scout learn more about their father and his rules on life than they probably ever expected. Atticus teaches by example, not by words. He feels a moral obligation to defend Tom Robinson against an unjust charge, even though race relations determined his fate before the trial even began. He teaches Scout and Jem that some things are worth fighting for because they are right, even if they may be a lost cause. He treats his children with respect and earns theirs in return.

I know there are dozens of themes and motifs and symbols that one could analyze during and after reading this book, and that's part of the fun upon finishing it. If you finish the last page and put it back on the shelf, you're missing half of it. You wouldn't know how the story is partly autobiographical or that it was never expected to sell. But as you read the story, savor it, and save the analysis for the end.

Back to School: A Victorian faerytale

I had debated whether or not I should count this towards my Back to School challenge, since I've already read one Dickens, but in the end I thought it best to tack it on as it was 1,000 pages long - and a damn good novel at that. Charles Dickens's Bleak House is an intricate and immense look at the court system of London in the 19th century, a fascinating analysis on the effect of class on day-to-day activities, and a document that showcases women's independence and forthrightness even before they had suffrage.

In short - although no Dickens novel can really be described in short - it is the tale of Esther Summerson, a woman who is raised not knowing who her parents were. As she is told incessantly by her original guardian, 'Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers.' Chance bestows her though when her guardian dies and she's brought under the auspices of a Mr John Jarndyce, an amiable man who sole intent is to make his companions happy. Living in Bleak House - a wonderful place despite the name - he attends to Esther and her two companions, Ada and Richard, cousins and wards of court.

And court is central to the story as Ada, Richard, and John are all tied to the outcome of the most infamous case in Chancery Court's history: Jarndyce and Jarndyce - a case that has ruined lives and has cost more than it's worth. Richard slowly becomes more involved as he sees his aspirations tied to it; whereas John Jarndyce has distanced himself from it entirely so as not to become bogged down, villainous, moneyhungry, or lecherous.

Even now to describe this I'm realising that I can go on and on, as Dickens captures so many intricacies, so many locks and just as many keys, to Victorian society. There are scores of characters, each with a strong identity. And above this all sits Lady Dedlock, a mysterious, somber woman who holds many secrets and many answers to the situations at hand. Her secrets though are being pulled out into the open by her husband's lawyer, Mr Tulkinghorn, who is uncovering something that could tear the Dedlock name.

This is a much more mature narrative than that of Nicholas Nickleby, which was my last Back to School book. The characters aren't as hot headed, their decisions are poignant - whether for good or ill. There is idealism, as Richard shouts, 'I will begin the world' while he plunges further into his case and thus into madness. There is romance, satire, intrigue, detective plots (with arguably the first detective in all English literature), and spontaneous combustion - all of which creates a story of the highest order with characters completely memorable and relatively three-dimensional. Lady Dedlock remains to me one of the more vivid creations I've come across in my reading.

Dickens, when it doesn't feel like overdone pathetic fallacy, aptly captures all the information we need to know from each scene; his description of the fog that pervades this entire narrative is masterful. (One would even like to say that it might have influenced TS Eliot when he wrote 'The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock'.) For instance, the novel slowly begins with a journalistic description of London, autumn's coming to an end, and it seems like some elephantine mythical beast is roaming the streets of London. Then: 'Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty city). Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships...' It goes on for several lines, but it reminds us that we cannot escape one another, that each deed we do affects the next, that atmosphere does seep into our skin whether we want it to or not.

Back to School: No more school!

I watched Douglas McGrath's 2002 adaptation of Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby on a whim and, besides the lead actor's flat acting, enjoyed it tremendously. Thus I decided to change my 'Back to School' reading list and add this coming-of-age tome.

The eponymous character is an angry but loving young man who loses his father early in life; his father unfortunately left his family in a bit of a conundrum - he rids them of their savings on a business plan that goes awry. And so the Nicklebys are forced to ask for help from Ralph, Nicholas's uncle, a man who has no love but for money, no care but for manipulation. Nicholas, eager and willing to do anything for a shilling, decides to work at a Yorkshire school (Dotheboys Hall) under the auspices of Wackford Squeers and family, but upon arriving he sees the utter brutality and ignorance of the Squeers - how they cane the boys, feed them something worse than gruel, and mentally unprepare them for the world outside.

When the physically - and mentally - disabled servant of Dotheboys Hall, Smike, tries to run away and is caught by the Squeers family, when Wackford decides he will torture and mutilate the boy in front of the rest of the school, Nicholas finally steps in and saves the boy from his fate, instead whipping Squeers. Nicholas and Smike become a Don Quixote and Sancho Panza of sorts along the English countryside, trying to find a way home, a way back into favourable society, and a way that Nicholas and his family can be independent from Ralph, who becomes much more sinister, especially when you see how he terrorizes Nicholas's sister and her innocence (it's almost surprising she doesn't follow the path of Tess of the D'Urbervilles).

Of course, as this is a Victorian novel and one by Dickens, there many more storylines and characters than this. And the McGrath film adaptation does a fine job managing them all in an entertaining and essence-capturing way. I found the second half of the book a bit annoying, as if there was such a change in theme (Nicholas finds a love interest) that it didn't have the same exciting energy that the first half had. Additionally - and I know that this a large aspect of 19th century writing - I did not enjoy how everyone was so black or white; characters couldn't be in the grey area, having good and bad qualities, having issues of the past that they're working against. And I felt like Dickens manipulated the narrative too much when it came to Smike: although he was my favourite character in the novel itself - and Smike himself had some of the best, tearjerking lines - I didn't find it necessary that he had to be so abused and so belittled that he was so dependent upon Nicholas and, eventually, his family.

But in closing, my preferred lines from the novel:

'Do you remember the boy that died here?' [Smike said]

'I was not here, you know,' said Nicholas gently; 'but what of him?'

'Why,' replied the youth . . . 'I was with him at night, and when it was all silent he cried no more for friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to see faces round his bed that came from home; he said they smiled, and talked to him, and died at last lifting his head to kiss them. Do you hear?'

'Yes, yes,' rejoined Nicholas.

'What faces will smile on me when I die!' said his companion, shivering. 'Who will talk to me in those long nights? They cannot come from home; they would frighten me if they did, for I don't know what it is, and shouldn't know them. Pain and fear, pain and fear for me, alive or dead. No hope. No hope.'

As beautiful and as provoking as this passage is, it is dripping with melancholy. But still, a worthy read.

The "Back to School" Reading Challenge!

The "Back to School" challenge has been underway for a couple of weeks, and I hope everyone is getting off to a good start (or has at least decided on a reading list!). Use the Mr. Linky below to link to your reading challenge posts, so we can all follow along with your reviews.

And hey, it's not to late to sign up! Just visit the original post to read the rules. You can sign up with the Mr. Linky below, and be sure to come back to link to your challenge posts. This challenge lasts until December 31, 2009, so you've got plenty of time!

As for my own reading list...I'd had several in mind as I created this challenge, but I think I'm going to just have to narrow it down as I go. I haven't decided for sure which ones I'll end up choosing, but they'll be from this list:

1. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
2. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
5. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
6. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

The only one I haven't read is Grapes of Wrath, but I can't say I remember a whole lot about the others since I read them all when I was 16 or younger.

Back to School: A sunny day at the gulag

This 'Back to School' challenge is a great way to return to certain literature I've always wanted to read, even bought, but just could get into. It's a perfect excuse to invest time into more classics (some contemporary), to be more aware of the modern book conversation.

I had bought One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich last year when the author, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had died. Solzhenitsyn, a Russian with a great big bushy beard, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970, although didn't collect until four years later after he was deported from the Soviet Union. (The USSR wouldn't allow him to go to Stockholm to be pick up the diploma; the Swedes wouldn't schlep through the Nordic seas award him in Moscow.) One Day in the Life... is perhaps the author's best known work, a short novel about a particularly 'pleasant' day in a Siberian gulag during the Stalinist regime, told in bareboned prose on sad yet amusing scenes.

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been imprisoned for espionage against fellow comrades. Unfortunately for Shukhov, that isn't true: Back in 1941, he escaped a German prisoner of war camp, fell into fellow Soviet hands, but said Soviets immediately believed that he really was working for the Germans. So a ten year sentence in Siberia was in order. Every day he has to worry about the men barking orders at him, the other prisoners if they will misbehave and get everyone else in trouble, the weather that is so cold everything freezes except for blood. A trip to the 'box', a solitary confinement chamber, may be a ten-day sentence, but the result is tuberculosis and ill-health for the rest of your days. You might as well adopt death instead.

Very few things happen in this story, and the way the narrator tells it you feel almost removed from the situation entirely. As if this were some sort of sterile experiment. Shukhov wakes up, fails to qualify for sick bay (due to the two person quota already reached), takes his hat off before eating 'soup', lays some bricks more precisely than the others, makes a couple of 'rude' comments, and goes to sleep somewhat happily. The narrator isn't interested in building suspense, in embellishing detail. He's just there to document. This is how it was, and this is how it will be tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

We don't find out that Shuhkov is Ivan Denisovich until 25 pages in, when someone formally calls him by name and patronymic, unlike everyone else (including the narrator). And although Ivan Denisovich is a bricklayer by trade and perhaps has gone a bit atavistic and doesn't think about the family he left behind since there's no use in doing so, there is a sensitive and beautiful side to him, shown in perhaps my favourite section of the book, the only one in this whitewashed world of Siberia where beauty and sarcasm simultaneously permeate the page:

The captain spat in disgust. "I never met a sailor as stupid as you. Where do you think the old moon goes, then? . . . Go on, tell me."

Shuhov sighed and delivered his reply with a slight lisp. "Where I come from, they used to say God breaks up the old moon to make stars."

The captain laughed. "What savages! I never heard anything like it! So you believe in God, do you, Shukhov?"

Now Shukhov was surprised. "Of course I do. How can anybody not believe in God when it thunders?"

"Why does God do it, then? . . . Break up the stars. Why, do you think?"

"That's an easy one," Shukhov said with a shrug. "Stars fall every now and then, the holes have to be filled up."

While reading, One Day in the Life was a bit hard to swallow. But thinking about it after completing it, the drudgery resonates soundly, like a rustle in the woods. Perhaps not the most enjoyable read, but one that makes you consider what life would mean when you can only have 200 grams of bread a day.

Introducing the "Back to School" Challenge!

The geeky side of me always gets jealous this time of year as I browse the tables of Barnes & Noble. Why am I jealous? High school reading lists. Unlike 95% of high school students, I waited for our school year reading assignments with anticipation and excitement. And also unlike 95% of my fellow students, I actually read the books. Get graded for something I did in my free-time anyway? Perfect!

I loved my high school, but English was not its strong suit. I guess that's the price you pay when you attend a Math and Science-focused school. As I browse through bookstores today and converse with people my age, I discover how many classics I was never required to read, and I want to amend that.

Thus is born the "Back to School" Challenge! The rules are simple:

1. Choose! Any four reading-list books [ones you never got around to reading or ones you want to re-read].
2. Sign up! Sign the Mr. Linky, grab a button, and write a post detailing the books you have chosen for this challenge. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment here!
   
3. Read! Between September 1, 2009, and December 31, 2009 [only one book a month!].
4. Post! Your comments/reviews on your blog or in the comment section of this post.
5. Check back! Read other blogs and discover what others have to say.

Need some ideas?

• The Washington Post's Summer Reading List
• Pearson's Suggested Reading
• Reading list for the College Bound
• Goodreads' list of Must Read Classics

Need a button?

Enjoy!