To Kill a Mockingbird

Posted on May 30, 2011 by smellincoffee

To Kill a Mockingbird
© 1960 Harper Lee
376 pages

Mark Twain once opined that a classic is a book which everyone praises and no one reads. That cannot be the case with To Kill a Mockingbird, a classic coming-of-age story set in the fictional county of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. The story told by Jean-Louise “Scout” Finch is once of growing up — not only in the literal sense of advancing in age, but in learning to grapple with adult questions of conscience and courage. Scout and her brother Jem are guided in this endeavor by their father, the remarkable Atticus Finch; a man of deep, quiet courage and unpracticed kindness.

Atticus is a lawyer in the noble sense of the word, who hopes to use his office to see that justice is done. When he takes a stand against the prejudices of his fellow citizens and defends a black man accused of rape, Atticus and his children must learn to persevere with dignity.  Though Atticus is regarded by everyone I know who’s read the book as a pillar of moral strength,  the understated nature of that strength impresses me the most. Atticus is not a Puritan proclaiming morality from the pulpit, reveling in righteousness: he simply does what he thinks is best and is content to let that stand. His strength of character is not a pillar: it is a foundation,  deep, wide, and ever-steady. I think I would  go mad living in Maycomb during the trial, just as Jem nearly did — but Atticus is possessed by the serenity of Martin Luther King, this faith that the moral arc of the universe is long but bends toward justice. Perhaps that peace comes from the deep affection he has for the community of Maycomb, which carried great appeal to me before the trial started. I live not far from the real-life inspiration for Maycomb, and I know what kind of city the Finches hail from. I delighted in meeting their neighbors,  felt their fear and wonder as Scout and Jem  explored the world around them.

While the story of Atticus Finch must have been dynamite in its time and continues to inspire today — continues to earn the title ‘classic’ —  this book a fantastic novel despite the reputation classics have for being wise but unreadable. I did not read To Kill a Mockingbird as a classic. I began in that vein, but I soon became enraptured by the humor and gentle spirit of Atticus, the self-willed pugnacity of Scout, and the passion of her brother Jem. I was too busy soaking in this wonderful story to realize — “Oh, yes, this is a Classic”.   I’ve been remembering it with great affection for the past week and a half, reluctant to finish the review because then I knew part of me would move on. I will be revisiting this book in the future: it has become an instant favorite.

Absolutely wonderful If you’ve not read this, or if you’re only experienced it as a classroom text,  it is well worth your while to visit it on your own.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Ethical Assassin

Posted on May 30, 2011 by smellincoffee

The Ethical Assassin
© 2006 David Liss
336 pages

Lem’s just a kid selling encyclopedias so he can go to college, that’s all. He never meant to get involved in a criminal conspiracy, but circumstances spiraled out of his control. He went into a trailer to sell books to two suspicious rednecks, and then — bang, bang — he’s witness to a double homicide and utterly confused when the assassin apologizes to him.  The killer — Melford Kean — is an altogether pleasant fellow, once you get past the assassination bit, but he’s got a job to do, evil to fight,  and now Lem has become his unwitting ally.  Lem would like nothing more than to close his eyes and walk away, but circumstances continue to force him to rely upon this bizaarely compelling stranger. Thus, for a ltitle while at least, both Lem and Melford are destined to walk the same path.

So begins one of the most fascinating novels I’ve ever read. The criminal conspiracy itself is rather tame — involving encyclopedias, drug labs, and hog farms — but Melford makes for an irresistible story. Who is this affable stranger who shoots people and then treats people enveloped his actions with such kind regard? Why did he shoot two seemingly harmless rednecks?  As the story progresses, Melford emerges as a highly principled and motivated man who is interested in swaying Lem to his point of view — engaging with him in conversations about ideology, the influence of culture, and the basis of ethics.  As Melford and Lem’s mutual problem reaches crisis levels, the method behind Melford’s madness becomes increasingly clear to both Lem and — I assume the author hopes as much — the reader.  While I don’t know enough about the author’s beliefs to speculate on his intent with The Ethical Assassin, it reads in parts like an author tract.  I delighted in the way Melford constantly teases Lem, engaging with him and drawing out a discussion.  While I don’t agree with Melford ultimately,  the unfolding of his arguments complemented the story’s pace smartly.

With intriguing characters, philosophical ideas to grapple with, and the kind of quirky humor I like in a novel, I’d say The Ethical Assassin is a solid hit.  While I chose to avoid mentioning Melford’s cause in the review (possibly a spoiler),  it’s strongly hinted at early on so I will link to two subjects of discussion. Your choice in hovering over them.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Angels and Demons

Posted on May 29, 2011 by smellincoffee

Angels and Demons
© 2000 Dan Brown
572 pages

There’s a dead body bearing the mark of an ancient conspiracy lying in the halls of Europe’s foremost scientific laboratory. Robert Langdon, who apparently makes a living commenting on corpses with symbolic importance, is whisked away by space-plane to CERN, where he descends into the bowels of the Earth and realizes there is something rotten in the state of Denmark Switzerland.  Someone has stolen enough antimatter to take out half a city, and that someone might be working for a secretive organization with powerful ambitions and a burning hatred for the Catholic church — the Illuminati, the ‘enlightened ones’.  Driven underground by the Catholic church centuries before, they intend to strike a killing blow at their enemy through the ages…by blowing them to Kingdom Come. If Langdon can’t track the Illuminati down before midnight, the Catholic church’s day in history may be at end.

Although that sounds like a great setup, this book was a labor to read. I groaned throughout the first one hundred pages, and near the climax I pondered giving it a good throw across the room. It’s a library book, though, so I didn’t. I just set it gently on the floor until my eyes had stopped rolling long enough for me to read it. I understand this to be Dan Brown’s first novel, and that shows. The characters are insultingly simplistic, exposition utterly contrived. From the start Brown had his imbecilic characters blabbering on about the ancient war between science and religion, and I was very relieved when the chase began in full — a chase through the Vatican City, with settings drawn from Rome’s rich background of monuments from the Empire through more modern Baroque churches. Unfortunately, the science/religion discussion came back with a vengeance, and it was there that I wondered, ever so briefly, if seeing the book sail through the air might make me feel a bit better about subjecting myself to it.

The painfully forced discussions about the  respective worth of science and religion, and the relationship and tension between then  just wouldn’t go away, because the Illuminati were supposedly a society formed to protect and advance science from the dogmatic Church. Maybe if you don’t give a rip about science, the novel would be as benign to you as The DaVinci Code was to me — but I  like science, I like history, I like comparative religion, and seeing all three subjects flayed alive throughout the book made my brain weep. The torture reaches its climax when one of the book’s then-most sympathetic character denounces the God of Science for page after page,  simpering about his blessed Church’s contributions to the human race and how awfully tired  the Church was of being constantly slighted.  Well! I’m sorry a millennium and a half of interrupted power over the entire western world wasn’t enough for you!  Perhaps if you’d managed to do anything in those fifteen hundred years we’d be a little bit more impressed, but from where I sit all I can see is the palaces you built. I’d say science has earned bragging rights.

The book does have redeeming qualities — the clue chase through Rome, for instance. Not only do the settings fascinate me, but I liked the little historical nuances that would send Langton on a false trail ever so briefly. The ending is also more interesting than I’d imagined after despairing over the Chamberlain’s speech. Unfortunately, these are the only redeeming attributes —   the characters are simplistic, the dialogue and exposition fall flat (when they’re not insulting), and a lot of the research…

(deep breath)

…is atrocious beyond words. I  now understand the phrase “Dan Browned”.  I cannot fathom how this book managed to get past the editing process with historical and scientific mistakes so numerous. Robert Langdon may known a awful lot of art history, but otherwise he’s a moron. That’s a word I don’t use often, and I hesitate to use it against a character Tom Hanks has portrayed — but book-Langton is..terrible. Case in point: he tells one of his classes that the Catholic church borrowed Communion from…wait for it…

The Aztecs. The Aztecs! Whom the Church did not encounter for 1500 years!  For fifteen centuries, the people of Europe took Communion never knowing they’d artlessly stolen it from a people who lived an ocean away.  The fools!

I really don’t know what to add to that. I don’t write negative reviews often, so this is one for the books.  Angels and Demons is as bad a novel as I’ve ever read, rivaling only the Left Behind novels for their simplicity and unbelievable ‘messages’.  Caveat lector.

…and I only say that because I don’t know the Latin for “Run away really quickly”.

Related:
The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , | 4 Comments

This Week at the Library (25 May)

Posted on May 25, 2011 by smellincoffee

I’ve yet to write my review of To Kill a Mockingbird (past the first paragraph, anyway), but I loved it. I’m still enjoying The Ethical Assassin: if what I’ve read so far is an indication of what is to come, I will be enjoying the author further.

Today at the library I picked up:

  • Biology Made Simple, following up on last week’s Physical Science Made Simple. Like it, I will probably devote an hour a night to reading Biology, as though I am in class. 
  • Angels and Demons, Dan Brown. I’m in the mood for some historical silliness. 
  • The Age of Faith, Will Durant. Yep, I am getting back on the horse. Let’s do this, corrupt aristocrats, cruel churchmen, and fanatic holy warriors! 
  • Walter Lord’s The Miracle at Dunkirk is still on the table, or more accurately, ‘on the couch’. 
Posted in Reviews | Tagged | Leave a comment

Top Ten Books I May Have Or May Not Been Not Entirely Honest About

Posted on May 24, 2011 by smellincoffee

From the Broke and the Bookish:

May 24: Top Ten Books You Lied About (lied about reading, lied about NOT reading, lied about liking/disliking, etc….dish your dirty secrets!!)

1. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel DeFoe and 2. Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne.

Crusoe? Read it? Sure! You bet! I even got in trouble with my father because I read it while walking down the street. ..only it was a Great Illustrated Classics version, for children, with lots of pictures. I checked it out in high school to read it proper, but I never got around to it. I will, though.

3. Peasants, Rebels, Women, and Outcastes: the Underside of Modern Japan, Mikiso Hane;  4 The Peoples of the British Isles: from Prehistoric Times to 1688, Standford E. Lehmberg; 5. A Modern History of Japan; Andrew Gordon; and 6. Victorian America, Thomas J. Schlereth.


These were all books which I was supposed to have read in class, but didn’t…mostly. That is, I’d do the assigned readings for the first few weeks of the semester, then start missing every other one, and by the end of the semester not realize how incredibly behind I am.  I never endured any penalties for this because I listened attentively in lectures. I passed my English History Since Elizabeth and Renaissance and Reformation classes without even buying the books, because I had to save costs those semesters.

7. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Yes, I read it. And I made complimentary noises at it, because it’s a Classic and it’s hard to make hissy noises at Classics unless they really deserve it. But truth be told…


…I didn’t really enjoy it. 

8. The Ascent of Science, Brian Silver
This is an excellent book. The first part of it changed the way I viewed the world. I’ve never finished it, but I think I’ve commented on it here twice.  I keep meaning to go back and finish climbing the mountain, but it hasn’t quite happened yet.

9. Something by Faulker
My English composition instructor favored southern literature and relished the idea of springing Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner on we naive youths fresh from high school. Faulker’s stream-of-consciousness approach, and the general weirdness of southern gothic novels in general,  did not strike a chord with me — and so I forgot or didn’t bother to read one of his works for our final exam,  one which involved a creepy house and a dead person. I was excused from taking the exam, though, by my instructor: she said that based on the term’s coursework, I was in excellent shape.

You’d better believe that was a gift horse I didn’t look in the mouth!

10. Something Related to Martin Guerre
My favorite professor’s approach to Historical Methodology involved class debates. Near the middle of term we were to watch a movie based on The Return of Martin Guerre over a course of two weeks, during which time we were to read articles defending or attacking the book’s scholarship. We were sorted into teams and would debate the merits of the work following the movie. I thought he meant the class following the movie sessions. I didn’t realize we were having the debate immediately after the movie,  so I came to class with nothing more than a bottle of water and some pretzels to enjoy during the movie. I hadn’t even read the articles my side was supposed to cover,  and to this day I have no idea what position we were to have taken.  Normally active in class discussion, I retreated into the background like a snake, murmuring assent and nodding gravely during our discussion but contributing nothing.   I felt like such a creep!   At the end of term we did a similar project, a debate about the merits of the United States’ decision to attack Japan with nuclear bombs,  and there I applied myself properly and even steered our group’s discussion. I hope that makes up for my previous parasitism.

——————

Despite what this post may lead you to believe, I really am a serious student!

Posted in General | Tagged | 5 Comments

Teaser Tuesday (24 May)

Posted on May 24, 2011 by smellincoffee

Grief, where does the time go? Is it truly the last TT of May?  From Should be Reading, as ever.

…well, no, we’ve one more. But just one more.

I can sense the grumbling. How, are you wondering, do I know all this? Am I secretly Jim Doe in addition to being Lem Altick? Is this a multiple-personality story?

p. 24, The Ethical Assassin. David Liss.

Posted in General | Tagged | 1 Comment

Sharpe’s Tiger

Posted on May 21, 2011 by smellincoffee

Sharpe’s Tiger
© 1997 Bernard Cornwell
385 pages

Until the birth of modern India in 1947, there existed  for many centuries upon the southern tip of the Indian peninsula a kingdom known as Mysore. In the year 1799, the British Empire — whose commercial interests made it increasingly interested in the affairs of the peninsula — opted to remove Mysore’s king, the Tippo (or Tipu) Sultan, from the throne, for he was far too fond of the French, and the French far too interested in India, for the situation to be tolerated. And so Private Richard Sharpe,  redcoat soldier in the 33rd Foot under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, advanced upon the Sultan’s capital.

Sharpe’s general attitude being what it is, in no time at all he’s broken the nose of a sergeant who is out to kill him, and is rescued from death-by-flogging only when a lieutenant given an important mission requests Sharpe’s assistance. The two men are to infiltrate the Sultan’s army, then find and rescue a captured British colonel who has information vital to the campaign. Time is of the essence, for the clever sultan has arranged a bloody trap for the army advancing upon his city.

Sharpe’s Tiger must be one of this series’ more significant books, for Sharpe — most famous for his skills as a riflemen — picks up a rifle for the first time here, and begins a career as an 19th century action hero. It establishes his early history and reason for joining the army,  and as the tension builds Sharpe grows from a rogue on the point of deserting into a genuine soldier. The future Duke of Wellington is also here — young, and with a legacy to begin building.  The Tippoo sultan ranks among Sharpe’s more memorable enemies: he is a man obsessed by tigers, to the point of having his soldiers wear tiger-striped uniforms, employ tiger-shaped cannons, and fire muskets decorated by tigers.  Though a enemy of England and in Sharpe’s eyes a ‘bastard’, the man’s bravery, wiliness, and leadership skills earn him the grudging praise of the book’s various British officers, including Sharpe.  I especially appreciated Cornwell’s pacing here: the whole of the book ramps the tension as the British move toward attack. There are also some unique characters who I hope to see again, like Lieutenant Lawford.

Excellent as always.

Related:

  • Sharpe’s Challenge appears to have been baldly borrowed from Sharpe’s Tiger. 

Posted in historical fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Cave Paintings to Picasso

Posted on May 21, 2011 by smellincoffee

Cave Paintings to Picasso: The Inside Scoop on 50 Art Masterpieces
© 2004 Henry Sayre
93 pages

I found this book while looking for something else (books on wolves, strangely enough), and its title grabbed my attention immediately. Upon arriving at the library I found it to be a different book than I’d imagined, but still amply useful. Cave Paintings to Picasso contains information about fifty works of art from around the world, ranging in medium from the predictable (paintings and sculptures) to the more esoteric (tapestries and medieval books).  I’m reasonably sure that the book was written for children or younger readers, given its shortness and ‘wacky’ font arrangements, but the author manages to cram in a surprising amount of detail in one-page descriptions, explaining the work’s significance in more florid language than I would have expected for a children’s book: the author positively waxes poetic in some sections. Most of the fifty sections are divided into two pages: a full-page print and a page of explanation. A few works were only given a quarter of a page, but they are in the minority. While the full-page representations allowed me to soak in the artists’ detail and gifts, Sayre’s explanations increased my appreciation: he pointed out, for instance, how one particular Chinese work blended calligraphy with the picture, depicting a mountainside in the same general shame as the Chinese symbol for ‘mountain’.  Most interesting (for me) was the presence of a painting depicting Muhammad, since I thought Islamic rules forbade the depiction of human forms in art.  Sayre does not mention who the author was, though.

Artworks covered:

  • Woman from Brassembouy
  • Hall of Bulls
  • Toreador Fresco
  • Nebamun Hunting Birds
  • Nefertiti
  • Burial Container for the Organs of Tutankhamen
  • Colossal Olmec Head
  • Achilles and Ajax Playing a Board Game, Exekias
  • She-Wolf
  • Nike of Samothrace
  • Moche Lord with a Feline
  • The Horses of San Marco
  • Book of Kells
  • Easter Island Ancestor Figures
  • The Bayeux Tapestry
  • Early-Spring, Guo Xi
  • Romance of Lancelot
  • Muhammad Placing the Black Stone Upon His Cloak
  • The Effects of Good Government, Ambrogio Lorenzetti
  • Bamboo, Wu Chen
  • January, Les Très Riches Heures, Limbourg brothers
  • Camera Picta, Andrea Mantegna
  • Hundreds of Birds Admiring the Peacocks, Yin Hong
  • Sight
  • Primavera, Sandro Botticelli
  • David, Michaelangelo
  • Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci
  • The Small Cowper Madonna, Raphael
  • Still Life with Flowers, Goblet, Dried Fruit, and Pretzels, Clara Peeters
  • Jahangir in Darbar, Abul Hasan and Manohar
  • Head of an Oba
  • Mandan Battle Scene Hide Painting
  • The Great Wve off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai 
  • Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, George Caleb Bingham
  • The Railroad, Edouard Manet
  • Dance Glass, Edgar Degas
  • Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, Mary Cassatt
  • The Umbrellas, Auguste Renoir
  • Irises, Vincent van Gogh
  • Mahana no atua, Paul Gauguin
  • Water Lily Pond, Claud Monet
  • Improvisation 30 (Cannons), Wassily Kandinsky
  • Man with a Pipe, Pablo Piasso
  • Sugar Cane, José Diego Maria Rivera
  • The Migration of the Negro, No. 32, Jacob Lawrence
  • Nighthawks, Edward Hopper
  • Convergence, Jackson Pollock
  • Ladder to the Moon, George O’Keeffe
  • Big Campbell’s Soup Can, 19c, Andy Warhol
  • The Son of Man, René Magritte
Posted in Reviews | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Earth Science Made Simple

Posted on May 20, 2011 by smellincoffee

Earth Science Made Simple
© 2004 Edward F. Albin
224 pages

Earth science! Fun!  I enjoy reading these little guides as introductions to a subject or refreshers on it, and Earth Science Made Simple fits the bill.  Four separate sections cover Geology, Oceanography, Meteorology, and Planetary Science, the last of which applies the principles observed on Earth to understand  the other planets in the solar system.  The book begins with the basics, introducing geology with a primer on atoms and elements. The authors frequently remind readers of material they’ve surveyed already, when new material is building upon it, mitigating the occasional need to thumb back through the book. The introductions serve the text well, connecting sections together, and the text is replete with illustrations, most of which are helpful. Only one, a list of the planets, seemed more distracting than helpful: while the authors make it clear the planets are not drawn to scale,  they do depict the planets as varying in size (Jupiter being large compared to the rest, Pluto being tiny) — which will throw readers off when they see Venus (almost as large as Earth) as being drawn slightly smaller than Mercury!

Because this is an introduction to the subject,  more detailed explanations are rare. Were they present, the book would be much larger.  While there are no end-of-chapter quizzes for the reader to test comprehension, the sections open with a glossary of terms that you should be able to identify at section’s end, and there are numerous little practical experiments suggested in sidebars that readers can use to see principles at work for themselves — like witnessing crystal growth after  introducing distilled Epsom salt into a pie pan coated in black construction paper, then leaving it in direct sunlight.  This lives up to the strong expectations I have of the Made Simple series.

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This Week at the Library (18 May)

Posted on May 18, 2011 by smellincoffee

I’m still waist-deep in last week’s reading (3/4s done with Earth Science Made Simple, halfway done with To Kill a Mockingbird, which is very readable, ‘classic’ status aside), but over the weekend I took care of some housekeeping business — removing dead labels, and diversifying the science tags.  While I did have some specific tags (evolution, anthropology), most of my science reading before now has been lumped together. Now you can choose from astronomy, biology,  biochemistry, cosmology, physics, natural history, and other sundry labels. They’ve all been added to the drop-box, so have at it. I also changed all author tags into a first-name last-name format, instead of just sticking on “Zinn” or “Postman” and expecting readers to be psychic.  Also, the cumulative reading list, BnB nonfiction challenge list, and Shelfari have been fully updated.

Before my library visit, I walked over to City Hall to inquire about that lampost I mentioned last week.  This was the first time I’d ever been inside City Hall, and the receptionist directed me into the Mayor’s office. I was impressed, given that my only mayoral experience comes from SimCity3000.  He wasn’t around, but I spoke with his secretary or chief of staff, and she told me the story. A few years ago a family lost a child to senseless violence, so they put  up a sign — with the city’s permission — in memoriam. When a murder has been committed within a certain time frame, the murder bulb is lit up in memory of them.  The statue of Vulcan  in Birmingham used to have a light which turned red when there had been an automobile-accident-induced death that day. We got around to talking about the photo project I’m doing (in the summer, I take walks around the historic downtown district), and she may share some select photos on the Selma City website. I’ve been thinking about making a photo blog, or posting my albums on Flicker or some related site given that right now they’re only on facebook.

Vulcan. He lost the lantern during a recent renovation, though.

Today at the library, I picked up a couple of books, seeing as I’ll be done with last week’s reading shortly:
  • The Ethical Assassin, David Liss. The title caught my attention: apparently it stars a “post-Marxist sociopath”. 
  • Cave Paintings to Picasso: The Inside Scoop on 50 Masterpieces
  • And Miracle at Dunkirk, because it’s by Walter Lord and I like his Titanic books. Looking forward to seeing the return of Lighttoller, the only officer aboard the Titanic to live and who was present at Dunkirk.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged | Leave a comment