Fun Home

Sometimes you have to explain why you don't like something, whether someone else is questioning you or not. That's how I feel about Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, a graphic novel chronicling she and her father's tumultuous relationship and how she put his life back together after his death.  A description like that doesn't sound unique, doesn't sound worthy of being dissected, and I'm not totally sure that it is. However, what is unique about Bechdel's story is that both she and her father are gay -- he secretly harbored the secret for years, while she came out to her family when she was roughly 19.  They never have anything really like a falling out, nor do they have something as major as a reconciliation; instead, their quiet conflict pervades much of Bechdel's life, and her memories of her father reflect on the odd legacy he left behind.

The graphic novel set-up, which took Bechdel over 8 years to create (watch an interview about her process here), intermingles classic literature with Bechdel's story, a style that makes sense in the context of her life and relationships.  Her father was an English teacher, and she an avid English student; the inclusion of the stories of Daedalus and Icarus, along with multiple references to the works of James Joyce, serve to create a massive metaphor that extends throughout the entire novel.  Daedalus is the Cretan inventor who constructed the Minoan labyrinth, the home of the Minotaur; he was later imprisoned by the King of Minos to keep the secrets of the labyrinth safe.  Daedalus then built two sets of wings for himself and his son, Icarus, so they could escape.  The wings were sealed with wax, which meant that both father and son had to fly steady and even to keep the sun from melting the way or the waves of the ocean from destroying the feathers. Icarus, however, got cocky, flew too high, and the wax melted -- Icarus plummeted to his death.  Eventually, James Joyce came around and, inspired by this tale, named his main character in both Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses Stephen Daedalus, drawing a not-so-subtle parallel between the genius of the inventor and the genius of Joyce's autobiographical character.

However, the graphic novel's comparisons sometimes seem forced.  Bechdel will occasionally use page after page of explanation in order to get this metaphor to make sense, and even then it still might not make sense.  At various points in the novel, both she and her father are supposed to be both Daedalus and Icarus -- if that's not a strained comparison, I'm not sure what is.  I get her point: both she and her father are human, they both have flaws, and they both have reached high for their arts and suffered setbacks.  But the method she employs to bring this metaphor to life takes too much effort to put back together.  It fits what she wants, I supposed, but it doesn't read well.

The only time it makes any sense (any easy sense, perhaps) is on the last page of the novel.

So, potential 

It's not much of a spoiler, since I'm not going to explain how the novel gets to its ending, but still: just in case.

The last page talks about how when Alison Bechdel really needed her father to be there, he was -- the line is something like "he was there to catch me when I flew," but I don't have the book in front of me as I write.  Here, the comparisons between Daedalus and Icarus make sense -- Bechdel is both in that she is ambitious and she is trying, and she is Icarus in that she is overly confident in where she's going when in reality she has no idea what will happen.  Her father is Icarus in that he is disconnected, he is pushing the limits of his life too far, and he is cruel in his own way, and he is Daedalus in that he is there for her without meaning to be, he is smart and clever and inventive and hiding, and he is her father.  He let her explore but stayed her protector, and he improves on Daedalus in that he stays to catch her instead of letting her fall.  Here, once, the metaphor makes perfect, unadulterated sense.  Too bad it's on the very last page.

It just doesn't make sense in the context of the rest of the graphic novel. Hm...

What I do find interesting about this extension of the metaphor is its implication of a positive relationship between Bechdel and her father.  As the image above suggests, they have a rather difficult relationship -- he wants her to be something she's not, while she expects emotions and connections from him that aren't there.  Frankly, the complaint that her father is distant most of the time and has trouble being a parent is common  considering the time period of the mid to late 70s.  And in addition, her dad obviously has quite a few personal issues -- he is a struggling closeted homosexual and possibly a criminal, as there are hints at his relationships with teens and students in his classes, among other more minor offences.

Their relationship seems somewhat abusive at times, as her father is a tough parent with high behavior and aesthetic standards.  The family as a whole is somewhat disjointed, each in their own little space, which adds to the distant feelings the novel generates. Bechdel herself deals with a lot of issues within the novel, a lot of issues that most of the time don't seem to have anything to do with her father.  She spends time discussing getting her period and her college experiences, how she figured out she was a lesbian, how she conquered her OCD.  And none of these seem to have any real connection with her father -- both on the page as Bechdel presents them and as I try to draw inferences as I read the book.

So overall, I just don't understand why Bechdel wrote this novel. It's fragmented -- it's about memory, not about creating a cohesive story, which is unusual as a writing style but not unusual as a thought style. In fact, that's how much of human thought is: fragmented, pulling up memories as they connect to current experiences.  So I understand how the events of the novel are put together, I just don't understand why.  Bechdel admits in the book that she doesn't experience much grief over her father's death, which would be my first thought for motivation in writing it.  I know that many nonfiction pieces don't have overarching themes or messages -- part of reporting life as it happens instead of artificially infusing it with meaning -- but there is still a reason for something to be written.  She could be writing to find closure; she struggles with the possibility that her father might have committed suicide, as in the prevailing opinion of most of her family. But I have to say, there are journals for those types of struggles, and I would imagine there is little reason for that to be made public.

Ultimately, the best idea I can come up with is that she's writing to make sense of a life in which a major player dies, to make sense of her life in relation to her father's death. Maybe there isn't something important Bechdel is trying to do here, maybe she's just documenting the overlap of two confused, struggling lives.

Perhaps I need to read it again.  Or save it and read it again someday far in the future after my own father dies (though he is neither homosexual nor distant, so there won't be a ton of similarity). Or maybe I just don't like this book.

Push

This book is hard to come away from unaffected.  Truly.  The various elements wash over each other and weave together to create a poverty-stricken, illiterate experience that is overwhelming.

Opening this book and diving in is a challenge in itself.  Since Clareece "Precious" Jones is illiterate (at the beginning of the book, she reads well below a 2nd grade level, despite being 16 and in 8th grade), her language reflects her abilities -- a written style that is largely phonetic, misspelled, and difficult to get used to.

Keep going. Once the language starts to make sense, the story unfolds quickly and clearly.  In some ways, the language resembles that of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, a style that is challenging but after about 30 pages fully understandable (and by the end, you too are using that language).  That kind of power with language is impressive.

Precious is a young teenage mother: she has one child, a mentally challenged girl, and is pregnant with her son at the beginning of the novel.  Expelled from school but driven, Precious enrolls herself in an alternative school in order to earn her GED. This public life is complicated enough, yet Precious's personal life is in utter turmoil.  She lives with her mother, a cruel woman who claims that Previous "stole" her man -- Precious's father, who is also disgustingly the father of both of Precious's children.

This relationship makes up one huge part of what makes this novel so controversial.  Precious is the product of an extramarital affair on the part of her father, who began abusing her when she was a very young child.  When she was 12, her own father impregnated her for the first time -- a mix of genes that created a child that Precious names Little Mongo after her Mongoloid appearance, a description of the facial features of those with Down Syndrome that Precious hears in the hospital.  Her second pregnancy is also via her father, a fact that somehow infuriates her mother because her father wants to have sex with Precious instead of with her.  The level of confusion and disgust rose continually for me as I put this all together; I can't imagine parents behaving in that kind of way or a child who seems to believe that this life is normal. And Precious never seems to fight back, as though she has accepted this treatment. That idea is absolutely repulsive, and really it is the only thing that seems to contradict both the overall theme of the novel and the personal motivation of Precious herself: Push.

The title of the novel emphasizes the overall message: Push. Keep going. Don't give up.
Precious hears this message over and over, and never in a place one might expect. The best example is when she gives birth to her daughter on the kitchen floor: The paramedic who responds tells her to push, a command meant to help her focus to have her baby. But the message resonates throughout the book. Precious thinks back to that moment often, thinking about how she has to push to keep going, to be educated, to raise her son, to move beyond her life's limitations and do something great.

And pushing is all Precious can do. Her principal expels her early in the novel, ostensibly for falling behind and causing trouble but really for the example she sets by being 16, in 8th grade, and pregnant for the second time.  But she pushes, an ability I find admirable.  I can't imagine the type of person that principal must be to expel a child who so clearly needs help, and as an educator the potential outcome is horrifying. There is so much education can do for someone, and so little that a lack of education does.  But Precious realizes that power -- she articulates her desire for an education and acts on it when she enrolls herself in a new school.  She pushes on, making progress toward changing her life, and that growths comes through clearly as her writing abilities improve and the language becomes more readable.

Sometimes I wish I could find an effective way to teach my students this message about education. It takes more than just someone saying it for teenagers to believe it though; I know, I say it all the time.  Statistics don't help either; there are piles of them out there about how education affects happiness, health, earning power, and more.  But students want something real to tie education and success together, something that overpowers the one-in-a-million chance that, without college, someone can still become Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, a chance many cling to as a reason to avoid school and hope for the best. No doubt, some of them can do it, but not all. I want them to see that, I want them to take the chance education offers for success and a better future. Sadly, I don't think we could read this book in class, but I am hopeful for something similar someday. This book would just be so perfect! The message is so clear, but not overpowering, not fake -- not something that kids would disregard as BS.

Even though the absurdity of the violence, rapes, etc., is anathema to administrators and parents, I think it would help students feel involved and feel the message.  There is so much going on for Precious, so much that connects to students lives.  There are obviously some extremes in this book, but based on the popularity of so many depressing novels (see: Oprah's old Book Club list. Almost every book on that list is super depressing, yet they were are hugely popular at one time or another.) in America today, depressing content pulls on people.. I realize that some students, like mine who are largely privileged, may find this book too much, may find the content too far removed from their realm of understanding. But the pull that others' misfortune holds in our society, coupled with the deep sense of hope that infuses the novel, could pull students in and open up conversations that I can only imagine.  Something about hope, in almost any form, gets readers involved, something my students are not immune to and something I would happily utilize to have these kinds of discussions in my classroom.

Hope does so much for Precious's life, and yet author Sapphire wrote this poor girl no future. There is a twist to this novel, a twist I won't give away, but suffice it to say that Precious had suffered enough before this last blow.  But her ability to overcome continues to amaze.  I'm not sure why the author gave Precious yet another obstacle, but I suspect she did it in order to highlight the mental and emotional strength of her main character.  

Ultimately, the novel is incredibly depressing..   But even so, it is incredibly hard to put down -- I steamrolled through it in about 3-4 hours in one afternoon. I really do not want to see the movie; I'm not sure I can watch that kind of suffering.  Playing it out in my head was bad enough.  Despite this, I think it likely that someday I will see the movie. The actress who plays Precious, Gabourey Sidibe, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress, an accomplishment all on its own.  That ability tells me the movie is strong, as the novel was carried so much by Precious that the movie must be too.

This novel has a future, and I don't mean its sequel. The overlay of hope is powerful.  This novel resonates with me, helps me understand the plight of the impoverished and illiterate in our country, and makes me want to do something better. I'm already a teacher, so I guess that's a start. A small one, but a start nonetheless.

Thirteen Reasons Why

I'm not sure I've read a young adult book with more power than this novel.  It opens with the narrator, Clay Jensen, discovering a box of cassette tapes on his doorstep. Recorded inside, he finds the extensive suicide note of Hannah Baker, a girl in his class who killed herself two weeks prior.  As he listens, the story unfolds: there are thirteen reasons why Hannah Baker died, and those reasons are people as much as they are actions.  Each action, then, lends itself to the next -- there is nothing too large or too small. As Hannah says early on, "in the end, everything matters."

I want to talk about this story in depth; since it's structured as a mystery, that means I have to give a few things away. So: Spoiler Alert!

The story is structured as a dual narrative: Hannah is telling her story via the tapes, and Clay must find a way to deal with his guilt as a party to Hannah's suicide -- because, in recording the tapes, Hannah has named Clay as one of the 13 reasons why she decided to end her life.

Hannah's story begins simply: she is a freshman girl who wants nothing more than her first kiss.  But that kiss gets twisted. Suddenly, to her classmates, Hannah went from a first kiss to the girl who got felt up in the park, a rumor started by the boy she kissed.  That reputation is compounded by being voted "Best Ass in the Freshman Class," a title she didn't want with a reputation to match.  As events unfold, her reputation as a slut compounds, affecting how others treat her and (soon enough) how she thinks about herself.

And as she starts to sink into a depression, the reasons why start to mount. A very private poem is stolen and published, only to be anonymously ripped apart by every English class in the school.  A former friend steals notes of encouragement from her bag in class. As the story goes on, the growth of Hannah's despair becomes more and more evident -- at first, her reasons are specific to her; as she gets closer to her decision, the incidents she records as partly to blame are more about losing faith in humanity.  Nobody did anything to her when she and former friend accidentally permit a girl to be raped at a party, but the lack of responsibility that both show sends her deeper into the spiral.  On the way home from that party, the tipsy driver she's riding with knocks down a stop sign -- a small action with largely implications, as an accident at that intersection later that night results in someone's death, but does nothing directly to her.  Despite these actions being somewhat impersonal, her connection to them shows a teen in tune with the world around her. They come at a time when Hannah needs hope, needs something positive to show her life is worth it, but nothing is forthcoming.

I won't give away all the reasons Hannah cites, especially not the last two. Her final destruction is best left to the novel. But Clay (the main character, remember?) struggles with every aspect of Hannah's story.  In the book, he crushed on Hannah for about a year before she died, but never got close to her; he has a reputation for being a truly nice guy, a reputation that holds true, while Hannah's reputation is one of promiscuity, despite the tapes' evidence to the contrary.  His guilt over failing to reach out to her overwhelms hims as he listens to her story.  As she explains the reasons, he recalls each event -- her yelling after the boy who stole her notes of encouragement, her noteworthy absence from class when her poem was being ripped apart, and the brief intersection of their own lives at a party one night.  I will refrain from discussing his part in her tragedy, as that is a story best left to Hannah and Clay.

The more I read about this novel, the more I am overpowered by people's responses to it.  Pre-service teachers who read this novel find it a powerful reminder that bullying doesn't always look the way we expect it to; Hannah's story is fundamentally that of how bullying can overwhelm someone's life, but she is not the typical victim.  Instead, she's pretty, popular, and smart: not exactly who the American media has taught us spends her time being stuffed into a locker. Instead, she is a victim of gossip, a form of bullying that often goes unnoticed and unpunished (and sometimes condoned, especially in the media).  Students who read this novel have the opportunity to see bullying from the victim's perspective, an opportunity that can create empathy and compassion. And with classroom conversation, students can change their own attitudes about bullying, opening up the possibility for courage in the face of this kind of adversity.

There does exist some controversy about this book.  After all, a variety of dangerous, even criminal, issues are present: underage drinking, sexual assault, drunk driving, rape, and voyeurism (in the form of a Peeping Tom).  And of course on top of that is the major issue of bullying and a resultant suicide. I can understand why, even in my own school district, there is argument over this book.  I don't care: I want this book read. and I want it read in schools. I want it taught in schools.  The emotions this book can inspire, the abilities it can awaken in students and teachers, the lessons it can teach, are worth every ounce of controversy it might create.  It is a novel worth fighting for.

Read this book. There is no better advice I can offer for this novel.

A Monster Calls

This book is simply stunning.  A Monster Calls is the first book to win both the Carnegie Medal for literature and the the Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration, and for good reason.  The crisp language intertwines with  gorgeous images to create a story that is incomplete without both; the book is beautifully rendered in all areas.  Stunned is the only word I can come up with to describe my most visceral reaction to this book.

At its most basic, the novel is about a child facing up to death. And it strikes the very heart of the American struggles with death, despite its being a UK book. There is, of course, the universal human struggle with death, and the novel reflects much of the attitude that goes along with that struggle.  I can't pretend to have enough experience to know how all people, or even a significant percentage of the population, deal with death.  But as a teacher who works with youth, more specifically youth at the high school age where they are exploring the world around them and its limitations, I do see and have learned to understand a fair amount about how people deal with death.

Few people seem to like to think about death (and I say "seem" because of course no one can know for sure). It's a uncomfortable topic thanks to the natural human fear of the unknown, and even though it can be argued that learning more about the topic can ease fears about it, I have found that teachers are often warned against discussing death overly often in the classroom.  Somehow, there is inherent danger in discussing this topic -- as if talking about it will encourage students to think about death, or as if thinking about death is indicative of a more dangerous road. Don't get me wrong -- I know that focusing on death can potentially be a symptom of suicide and must be treated seriously. That doesn't change my belief that there is no harm in discussing the topic. We are told as teachers that if students are thinking too much about death or are writing about death in some form, we should be concerned. I understand the need to protect my students, and I want to help them if they are struggling with suicidal thoughts or tendencies.  But despite that, people do need to think about death.  Talking about death, in the classroom or otherwise, is not going to start a kid's descent into a suicidal spiral; if anything, it can open up avenues for that student to reach out for help.

We do talk about death in my classroom. My students write bucket lists and read works that deal with death as a theme -- works like Macbeth, some poems of Keats, and more -- and many of these discussions touch on the idea of approaching death as a natural part of human life.

But as an American culture, we do not approach death as a natural part of life, we do not approach death in any kind of accepting way. Instead, death is a topic to be avoided, a concept to be struggled against, a fight against the natural order to life.  Bucket lists are a way, for American culture, to power ourselves beyond the idea of death; it's an idea akin to "If I haven't finished this list, I can't die!" This is something I don't find healthy.

I am not immune to this struggle.  I don't like thinking about death, nor do I overly do so. I do fear dying, and I fear it especially in the sense that I feel there is so much more I need and want to do before I die. I know it's bound to happen someday, and I guess I'm fine with that, provided that that 'someday' isn't anytime soon.  That ultimate unknown is scary, but to me it's a necessary fear.

This is not the attitude of Conor, the main character of A Monster Calls.  He suppresses his fears, a method of dealing that I find distinctly American.  Of course, Conor is dealing with the potential death of his mother as opposed to his own death, and familial death does not always follow the same patterns of thought -- in my experience, dealing with a family death, impending or passed, is more about denial than fighting, and that is the experience of this character.

The events of the novel itself are incredibly unique.  A boy, Conor is struggling with his mom's illness, and during the course of this struggle and its accompanying nightmares, he is visited by a monster.  The monster literally calls -- the distinctly British term that implies a polite exchange as opposed to a blustery argument. In calling, the monster (a transformed yew tree) tells Conor three stories about previous times he (the monster) has come walking, walking to avenge some disrespect or distortion or prevent some destruction. In exchange for the stories, the monster asks Conor for his story -- the truth about his nightmares.  The evolution of the narrative , the growth of the main character, the beauty of the pages, combine to create a story of unimaginable power.

One quote continuously popped into my head as I was reading this novel:
"When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing." - Enrique Jardiel Poncela
I don't believe I've ever encountered a book where this quote was more true.  The themes of the novel might be higher level, but the reading is effortless -- the effort put into this writing is truly incredible. The delicate black and white drawings contribute to the darker ideas in the novel, bringing the fantasy world of the monster to life as they pull the reader in.

I adore this novel.

I also have to say this (since I am a teacher):  I've already been a reader with pictures in her head, but this book would be a great resource for helping kids learn to build those pictures and improve their reading levels. Teaching students how to create images in their heads as they read is one of the hardest undertakings in education, one that I am fortunately not usually responsible for (because I teach seniors in high school).  But this book can help kids bridge between lower-level reading books and higher reading level books, and I would be inclined to give it to any struggling readers in my classroom.

And then I'd probably read it again just for myself.

The Visible Man

I have trouble writing about this book.  I read it back in March and while I was stunned by how good it was, I was still very unsure about how to approach it on paper.  So I thought about it and thought about it, brainstormed and recorded some of those thoughts, and then I thought about it some more.  For three months.

Now I am finally trying to undertake the task of writing about this complex book.  I absolutely adore Chuck Klosterman, who earned a place as one of my favorite authors with his first book, Fargo Rock City, and whose book Killing Yourself to Live remains one of my favorite books of all time.  Though there are times where I disagree with his philosophical ideas, and though there are times when I find his thinking to go off the deep end, I still find myself purchasing and reading every book he publishes.

Klosterman's books, minus The Visible Man

That is not what drew me to this novel.

This is Klosterman's second novel -- most of his writing is nonfiction dealing with American culture and its intricacies.  His first novel, Downtown Owl, is focused on small-town high school life; it's more complex than just that, but that's a decent surface description.  The prose of this novel is clean and straightforward, almost clinical, but the characters he draws are largely fascinating.  (And when reading the second novel, it's hard to tell that Klosterman is still the author -- the language style is so different!)  The Visible Man is a very different novel than Downtown Owl; in many ways, The Visible Man is a blending of Klosterman's cultural writing and his fiction, which creates a complicated result.

What drew me to this novel is its title vs. it's description.  On Amazon.com, this story sounds like science-fiction: a therapist is contacted by a man, known only as Y, who claims to have stolen some government technology that renders him effectively undetectable (there is a lot of discussion over the word 'invisible,' which I'll get to in a moment).  Thanks to this technology, he is able to fulfill his deepest desire: to sneak into people's homes and observe their actions.  AND YET, the title is The Visible Man.  The obvious contradiction between the two is what made me want to read the book, and this contradiction ended up being central to the ideas of the book.

I imagine Klosterman laughing maniacally to himself, saying, "This is exactly what I was going for! You've fallen into my consumer trap!" -- even though I would have bought the book anyway.

I realize now that I have only barely described the content of the novel itself.  Y has a government technology and uses it to observe people without their knowledge.  But the driving idea of the novel is that Y is seeking treatment from a therapist (and the book's narrator), Victoria, though he refuses to say that exactly he'd like to accomplish through this therapy.  They communicate strictly by phone at the beginning of the novel, and gradually throughout build a complicated relationship that I am hesitant to fully reveal.

The language of visible vs. invisible shows up (bu-dum!) throughout the novel.  Early on, when Y first steps into the novel in a bodily form, he is what you and I would call invisible -- he cannot be seen.  But Y refuses to classify himself as invisible, instead labeling himself as "unseen" or "nearly visible."  In fact, several times he reacts violently to being called invisible.

Y is not exactly like THIS invisible man -- his is more a body suit than a lab accident. Nonetheless, he's just as much a sarcastic and self-indulgent prick. 

This argument inspires much debate between Y and Victoria, his therapist, especially as the misadventures that Y describes start to come fully into view.

These instances that Y describes, wherein he is observing someone while inside their apartment, are often noteworthy in some way.  The implication is that Y has been inside hundreds, maybe thousands, of homes to conduct his 'experiment,' but the ones that he shares with Victoria are carefully chosen to prove a point. (Like I said earlier, that point is never quite revealed and is left up to the reader to discern.)  Some of the stories are incredibly violent, as in one Y is responsible for someone's death, and some are extremely disturbing, such as one where Y adds his speed to a drug abuser's pot and gleefully watches the, as he finds them, hilarious results.  The man comes off as a sociopath.

Yet this label seems to be exactly what Y wants to avoid.  He would never admit this; he never does admit that he's talking to a therapist for any kind of identifiable reason.  All he will ever say is that he's just there to talk, he just wants to talk and talk and talk to someone about what he doing with his life.  In his mind, Y has pure motives: he observes these people in order to understand Culture, that great elusive beast that rules the American consciousness.

Since culture is invisible, it is fitting that Y is also "invisible."  And just as he is not quite "invisible," neither is culture -- culture can be observed through its people and their tastes.  How does one determine what is American culture? You look at what's popular now, what American people are doing, what they believe in, what they work for, what they buy.  Culture is invisible, yet not. Y is also invisible, yet not -- he can be found, you just have to know where to look.

The book really is a lovely, if strangely manifested, discussion of what makes up culture. 

After much reflection, I find Y and his reasons for being in therapy to be very much representative of the everyday person.  He resists all of Victoria's efforts to analyze him, even going to great lengths to forbid her from doing such (including invading her house and injuring her husband), and seems to consider himself above the process of "therapy."  Yet there he is, sitting in Victoria's office, talking to her just as any patient would talk to his therapist.  His arrogance is superseded by whatever driving reason he has for being there. Thus, the question that comes to mind for both the reader and Victoria throughout the book is, why is he really there? The answer is simple: Y is seeking approval for his actions.  Just like every other person on the planet, Y wants to be told that he's okay, that what he's doing is right.  He wants reassurance.  However, just like the average person, Y does not want to admit that this approval is what he is looking for -- he just wants it to come naturally, hence his lack of discussion about his motives and his attempts to keep Victoria from categorizing him.  He acts with arrogance as a defense against what he really wants.

The character relationships in this book are exceedingly complex, and seeing that one of the two main characters is a therapist adds to the layers of meaning in the novel.  Victoria and Y have a semi-functional relationship; it builds to functionality and then eventually breaks down as the ending to the novel (I won't give away specifics).  Victoria is oddly drawn to Y.  She finds his stories fascinating, even as she questions their authenticity, and she struggles with the morals of her job even as she pushes Y to tell her more.  She is apprehensive and unsure and entirely unable to stop listening to his life story.  But it is only after Y really becomes visible -- after he opens up, not when he is physically seen -- that the story can end.  Only after he becomes the Visible Man does their relationship start to break down and Victoria start to assume power.  There is a tension throughout the novel that cannot be maintained beyond its events, and once that line is crossed, that's the end.

Ultimately, though I am stunned by how good this book was and how involved I became with it, I am not sure if I can recommend it to others without some additional knowledge about what kind of book a given person might want to read.  It is not a light book, and nor should it be undertaken as such.

Just Because I'm Curious...

Summer 2013: My first summer off as an actual teacher.

I'm taking a college-credit class this summer that focuses on Young Adult Literature and Censorship, and reading is a huge part of that class.  In addition, I borrowed a ton of books from my school's library AND friends dumped piles of books on me. 

I may not read all of these books; in fact, I'm not sure I expect to, because it might kill me.  But nevertheless, I want to know how many of them I actually get through -- even if I never get around to blogging about all of them.  

So here's the list:

1. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
2. Come Juneteenth by Ann Rinaldi
3. Jaws by Peter Benchley
4. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
5. Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston
6. A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd
7. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
8. Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers
9. Forever ... by Judy Blume
10. Push by Sapphire
11. The Compound by S.A. Bodeen    
12. Inexcusable by Chris Lynch
13. TTYL by Lauren Myracle
14. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
15. Feed by M.T. Anderson  
16. Shattering Glass by Gail Giles
17. The Fault in Our Stars by John Greene    
18. Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John
19. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
20. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
21. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
22. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
23. World War Z by Max Brooks      

And that's my whole summer. Between the end of May and the beginning of August, I read 23 books. I started a 24th -- so close to 25, which would have been awesome.

Dune

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

Dune may be one of my favorite books of all time.  It is, of course, one of the most classic sci-fi novels of all time, up there with Asimov's Foundation trilogy and Scott Card's Ender's Game.  In fact, I believe Dune was published before Ender's Game, so Herbert would likely precede Scott Card in the sci-fi canon.  Nevertheless: it is one of my favorites, one of my classics.

There are lots of different covers for this book, but this is the one I will always favorite, the one that best signifies the essence of this book -- just those two lone figures, walking away on the sand.  

I've written about Dune before (when I read it during my 2011-2012 book adventure), so I don't want to rehash all those thoughts.  But I continue to love the development of the characters, the depth of the story embedded into the culture that Herbert created with this book.

Reading this book for the second time in roughly two years, I have come to connect deeply with the quote that started this post.  I spend too much of my life operating through fear -- and even though I don't think fear enters too often into my daily life, I don't like the idea of fear being present at all.  This quote, coming from the mind and teachings of Paul Muad-dib, is perfect for the place where I am in my life right now.  I need this idea: it reminds me that I am not defined by my fear.

Another major aspect of this book that I absolutely love is its play with the archetypal Christ (or savior) figure.  Traditionally, the Christ figure, as it is known thanks to the overwhelming influence of Christianity in the Western world, is a character who sacrifices him/herself in some way as to save the others around them. Common modern examples could include Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring or Harry Potter in The Deathly Hallows.  Of course, these are both examples where the Christ figure doesn't directly intertwine with ideas of religion, a concept that plays out in a central way in Dune.  Much of the primary action is Dune is deeply connected with a planted idea about a savior  This savior will lead the Fremen people in rising up to recreate the surface of their desert planet into a lush paradise, a very literal embodiment of the religious idea of a savior propagated by Christianity.  However, this savior becomes a messiah, a savior of his people but in the military connotation that the word originally carries.  The Fremen rally around this savior, to their success and the destruction of their enemies.  The mythology that is built around this savior -- for some of it is true within the book and some is rumor -- creates a beautiful dialogue about what religion really is and what purpose it serves for its believers; the Fremen believe in him so blindly that they will do whatever is deemed necessary, and yet without him, the people are doomed to nothing.  This so closely links with my own ideas about religion, about its absolutely necessity that is coupled alongside its incredible danger.  And of course the most complicated element tied into the religion of the book is that the Fremen blur the physiological line between humanity and Other.

There is so much else that I could discuss about this book, but I also don't want to spoil it for others who will read it someday, hopefully soon.  Rest assured that the story is worth its 800+ page blossoming.

Finally: I just have to say this.  I have never seen the movie made in the 80s of Dune, nor do I plan to.  I've seen the images of how the director brought the Fremen with their stillsuits and the sandworms to life, and they are so far beyond what I've pictures in my mind that I just can't handle that image being destroyed. This is a risk that I run whenever I read a novel that is good enough to warrant movie attention -- my attachment to my own imagination of this world is too strong to let it be influenced by someone else's vision.  Even though the pull of Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck is pretty strong too.