#74 - "Native Son" by Richard Wright

I've just completed perhaps my fastest read since I started through these 100 books. Native Son, my 74th book from Time's list, and its 430 pages only took four days to read. Of course books like Animal Farm took less time, but you know what I mean...

I'll assume the chief reason I read it so fast, was that I enjoyed it so much. It was a real page turner, and one I couldn't put down. But while I couldn't wait to read the next page, at the same time, I dreaded reading that page. This book was a tragedy in the truest sense of the word. It was gut wrenching, heartbreaking, frustrating, and maddening. And wonderful.

Bigger Thomas, a 20-year-old African-American man lives in a rat-infested, one-bedroom apartment on Chicago's South Side. Living in quarters so cramped, he and his brother are forced to turn their heads when his mother and sister wish to change, as there simply isn't any privacy in their one room.

As if a man were author of himself

As I wind down number 55, Money by Martin Amis, I thought I should comment on something this book had, which I believe to be very unique.  I'm sure I haven't seen this before, and doubtful I'll see it again, at least not from this list.

Several of my previous reads from the list have mentioned other books on the list, and Money joins those ranks after the protagonist reads both Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, as well as mentioning The Catcher in the Rye.  And other books have mentioned authors of books from the list, be they mere mentions or actual characters like Theodore Dreiser was in Ragtime.  Money joins that group as well, when the protagonist meets an author who lives in his neighborhood, a certain Martin Amis.

I'm not sure what I think about having the author of the book as a character in the book.  And it isn't as if Amis is a once off, mentioned only in passing.  Quite the contrary, Amis becomes a rather important character in the book.  There isn't anything wrong with this, and the character is entirely believable and fits the book, it's just such an interesting technique.  Since starting this list two years ago, I've always, for whatever reason, gotten a kick out of these mentions and I think Money has now taken the cake.

One could argue, I guess, that Kurt Vonnegut makes an appearance in Slaughterhouse-Five, as 'Kilgore Trout,' but I don't think an appearance by what could at best be described as an alter-ego, is the same as the Amis cameo in Money.  Not only is the character named Martin Amis, he's also a writer and son of a famous writer.  Of course I really can't speak to whether or not the character is anything like the author when it comes to personality, as I don't really know Martin Amis very well; especially not 1984 Martin Amis.  But in the end, it does not really matter as the book is fiction.


For the record, this is the 11th book I've read so far that mentions another book or author.

Midway between your tents and walls of troy

The next book I read, will be a milestone of sorts, as it will be my 50th from the list.  The halfway mark.  My first thought was I should be picking something special for the halfway mark, but quickly realized that on a list of '100 All Time Books,' they're all supposed to be special.  Of course one could argue that these books are sort of like the beasts in Animal Farm; all books are equally great, but some are more equally great than others.

I ventured over to my local library yesterday to see what was available and to pick up what would be my 50th book.  For a long time I had figured on reading Lord of the Rings as the 50th.  It's a book I'm not that keen to read, it's big, it's well known, and for some reason always struck me as an ideal halfway book.  After spotting it on the shelf, I decided to keep searching.

The copy my local branch has is 1,100 pages, with font so small I'd need a magnifying glass to read it.  Considering I'm coming off a seven week odyssey through The Sot-Weed Factor I don't think I should be reading something so monumental right now.  While I did check it out, it will not be my 50th read.  Perhaps 52 or 53, but not 50.  I don't want get bogged down in another lengthy tale, and suddenly find that it's April and I've only read two books.

Instead, I've decided to read Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett.  The first criteria it meets, and perhaps the most important, is that it's short, only 215 pages.  But also, it's the first detective novel I'll have read, granted there are only a couple on the list.  It was also written in the 1920's, and I haven't read a book from the 20's since The Bridge of San Luis Rey, nearly a year ago.  So that's that.  The midway point will be Red Harvest.  And so far the plan is working as I'm about halfway through it already.

I'll never pause again, never stand still,

My reading progress the past couple of weeks could best be described as lethargic.  I continue to read The Sot-Weed Factor, but at an incredibly slow pace.  I'm enjoying the book, and am eager to see what happens, but I find myself maybe reading ten or twenty pages each day.  If it was Animal Farm, that would be okay, but this book is 800 pages long.  At my current pace, I won't finish this book until February.  Late February.

I've decided that I need to re-dedicate myself to tackling this read.  When I was reading Infinite Jest, a book I wasn't enjoying, I set a goal of reading 50 pages every day.  I wasn't able to keep that pace, but it did serve as a motivational tool for continuing to read.  With The Sot-Weed Factor, I'm a little over 200 pages in, with just under 600 to go, so I've decided to try the same thing; reading 50 pages a day.  This should have it finished in two weeks.  It won't be my best performance, but I'll get through it.

When thinking about why I've been reading this book so slowly, I've decided that reading through a list of 100 books is a little like sailing from the North Pole to the South Pole.  Currently, I'm reading my 49th book, which puts me near the equator and in the dreaded doldrums.  Like the sailors of the past, making it through the doldrums is no easy task and forces one to work hard, lest they come to a stand still.  I'm stuck in the doldrums right now, content with how much I've read so far, but still with so much to read.  I have to keep working or I'll never reach my goal.  I don't want to be the guy who read 48 of Time's list of 100 All Time Novels.

Now it's off to my reading chair; the couch!

You must return and mend it.

Progress on number 48 continues, as I read The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski.  I'll admit it might end up being a bit of a slow read.  I say this because the book is turning out to be a major downer; it's about the Holocaust.  While there's nothing wrong with a 'depressing' book, many good reads are, it's just that it's a difficult read, and one you don't just breeze though.  But it isn't slow because of boredom, like To the Lighthouse or because it's so mammoth like Infinite Jest. I'm hoping that as I get deeper into it, my pace will pick up.

In other news, I've been having a little bit of trouble managing my library books.  After not incurring any fines for almost six months, I racked up fines on Animal Farm and Red Harvest in October, but only $1.40, so nothing to write home about.  Before I left for Hawai'i, I thought I had made sure I had everything renewed until I got back, but some how missed two, which became overdue the day I left.  It wasn't until yesterday afternoon I realized I had two book that were more than ten days overdue.  The books in question were Christopher Hitchens' biography of Thomas Jefferson, as well as poet Ian Williams' Not Anyone's Anything.  As a result, my library account was locked, and I was billed $7.30.  To add to my shame, I didn't read either of them, which means I paid the library seven bucks to store their books on my shelf for a few weeks.

When I had started this project, I only borrowed one or two books at a time, but thought that with the Internet making it so easy to renew, I could take out dozens at a time, and always manage them without any problems.  I guess I was wrong.  While it is still much less expensive than buying all the books I read, I have now generously donated $41.15 to the Calgary Public Library since November of 2009.  Of that, $25.15 has been from books from the list.

I vow to not incur any more fines, until the next time I forget to return a book on time; which could be as early as next week.

#47 - "Animal Farm" by George Orwell

After taking a month to finish number forty-six, I finished number forty-seven in just under twenty-four hours, having wrapped up Animal Farm by George Orwell on Friday while in Hawai'i.  But it wasn't the quickest book I've read so far, as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe only took four hours to read, but it was the shortest book so far, by quite a bit too, at only 92 pages.

What can I say about Animal Farm that hasn't already been said?  Simply put, it's brilliant.  Brilliant writing, brilliant satire.  Taking its cues from the Russian Revolution, Animal Farm is the story of a revolution at a farm, where animals take over from humans.  With humans gone, they figure there will no longer be any tyranny or exploitation of the animals for profit.  Animals will only work for other animals.  There will be less work, but more production, as everybody will now be equal and everybody will be working toward a goal for the common good.  Of course it never works out as planned, and before too long the all too human trait of greed sets in.

Every metaphor works so well in this book, and the satire is so accurate to reality.  Even almost 70 years after it was written, we know exactly who every character represents and are familiar with most of the parallels to the Soviet Union.  There's Napoleon's Stalin, Snowbell's Trotsky, the NKVD in the form of vicious guard dogs, the re-writing of history, and the population that lacks everything, despite continual stories of increased production.


Every scene mirrors the growth of the Soviet Union's totalitarian regime, and it's impossible not to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all; especially since we know this really did happen.  The thirst for power that engulfs the animals at the farm is all too human, and eventually one cannot distinguish between the two.  Much like the former Soviet Union, 'all animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others.'

While reading the book, I kept having feelings of regret, for not having previously read it.  I've read Nineteen Eighty-Four more times than any other book, and for the life of me, cannot figure out why I never read this classic.  It's a perfect novel for me, combining satire and politics, with Orwell's brilliant writing.  While I have yet to rank the books I've read so far, if I did, this would be at or near the top.

My next read, a book I've twice borrowed from the library and returned without reading, will be The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski.

#46 - "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin

After spending most of October side-tracked with various distractions, I'm firmly back on course, and have finished my 46th book from Time magazine's 100 All Time Novels; Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin.  Sadly, it's the first book from the list I've read since Portnoy's Complaint, which I finished September 25th.  It isn't that it took me a month to read this one, I didn't start it until last week, and read the bulk of it on the long flight from Vancouver to Honolulu.

The book follows, at different points in their lives, a Harlem family from their roots in the South to their migration North to New York.  But it isn't about this family, it's about their moral short comings and the influence of religion on their lives.  Most of the characters in Go Tell It on the Mountain are deeply flawed, or at least have gone through troubling times in the past.  And as continues to often be the case today, how they use religion to cover up their morality, or lack there of.

Gabriel, a preacher, and the patriarch of the family, has perhaps the most troubled past, but now uses his devotion to Jesus and God to forget that past and proclaim himself as a good person.  As is so often the case with religion, 'what I did in the past is okay, because now I've found God.'  And because of his new found discovery, he is now free to judge and condemn those who are, for all intents and purposes, just like him.

Really, Go Tell It on the Mountain is more about the role of religion in African-American communities as it is about the characters or any plot.  Gabriel, basically a horrible person, without any training or education has become a fiery preacher.  His power arises from the fact that he can yell louder and with more conviction than others, not because he's more devoted or more knowledgeable.  And his new found religion hasn't made him a better person either; but he is now more respected, as a man of God.  Only his family knows the truth of who he really is.

The book speaks of a time when the majority of African-American people in the United States were poor, uneducated, and highly influenced by religion.  They fear and respect Gabriel because he stands at a pulpit each Sunday and tells them why they are bad people, without any understanding of his hypocrisy.  The book serves as a condemnation of religion and people's blind allegiance to it.

Part of me found the book a little depressing because of this.  Personally, I can't stand this religious hypocrisy that we see all too often; people of the cloth, putting up a facade of morality, but living a completely different life backstage.

I think Go Tell It on the Mountain is one of those books that's like 7-Up. You never order 7-Up, but it is refreshing and you aren't sorry you drank it, but you probably wouldn't recommend it to your friends either. Same thing for this book. I more or less enjoyed reading it, was interested in the story and characters, but it didn't knock me off my feet. Would I recommend it to others? Probably not, but if someone said they were reading it, I wouldn't dissuade them, and would look forward to discussing it afterward.


My next book, which I'm well into already, and should finish this afternoon, will be Animal Farm by George Orwell.  Despite Nineteen Eighty Four being one of my favorite books, I've never read any other Orwell.

You may as well go stand upon the beach

Aloha from Hawai'i!  As I write this, I'm looking out over Waikiki, with the waves of the Pacific rolling onto the beach.  It's obviously a very nice setting, with perfect weather for doing anything outside.  While many may first think of sports, or maybe sun bathing, my favorite thing to do outside, in Hawai'i, is read.  With such a perfect temperature that isn't too warm or too cold, it's so nice to sit on the lanai or the beach, and read.

While I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping up with my reading for the past couple of weeks, Hawai'i has gotten me back on track.  I have ten pages of Go Tell It on the Mountain remaining, and will head to the lanai to finish it as soon as I am done writing this post.  From there, I've brought two other books from the list with me, Animal Farm by George Orwell and The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski.  I'll probably go with Animal Farm first, as I want to read it before I get to my 50th read because Orwell has two books on the list, and I haven't read either of them yet.  It's also a short read, possibly the shortest on the list, so I should be able to get through it quite quickly.  I suppose at the end of the day, I want to finish both books while I am in Hawai'i, and feel I shouldn't have any trouble.

I've already been in Hawai'i for a couple of days, and I have been able to do quite a bit of reading.  Besides reading 75% of Go Tell It on the Mountain, I have also read some non-fiction with Moneyball, by Michael Lewis.  But I also spent some time reading a yet-to-be-released book by local Calgary author Whitney Boyd, entitled Tanned, Toned, and Totally Faking It, which I had been asked to review.

No, it isn't anything close to my normal read, as I don't often get into 'chick-lit.'  I did read Bridget Jones' Diary, but that's probably about it.  This book followed a similar plot to many books from the genre, and was sort of a Notting Hill style story with a celebrity and a 'commoner.'  I'm always excited to see local authors succeed, so I wish Whitney all the best.  I enjoyed that the protagonist was originally from Calgary, went to the U of C, and drank at the Den.  It reminded me of...myself!  Instead of having the character be from a generic American town, as so many Canadian authors seem to do, she has stayed true to her roots so to speak.  And there was even a reference to the list, as the main love interest's name was Jordan Baker, also the name of Nick Carraway's love interest in The Great Gatsby.

Now it's outside to the lanai, to finish off my 46th read.

Was i, to take this drunkard for a god

My reading has continued at a good pace this week and according to my Goodreads account, I'm 80% through The Sheltering Sky.  I'm enjoying it very much, and as soon as I'm finished writing this, I look forward to returning to it.

I've decided that part of my good progress since 'the big one,' since Infinite Jest, is due to the fact that I've been throwing in a little non-fiction on the side.  As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I find reading some non-fiction works as a motivational tool, causing me to actually read more often.  When I have two books I'm enjoying, I'm eager to read both, but must split my time; therefore I read more often.  If I'm not enjoying one of them, I make reading some of it mandatory before continuing with the book I am enjoying, so again, I read more often.  So far I haven't run into an instance where I don't like either book, so I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it.

The non-fiction book I just finished is called God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens.  Obviously this is a very polarizing book, and I don't really have any desire to get into any kind of religious debate, despite my feeling so passionately toward one side.  What I can comment on is what a good writer Hitchens is.  I'd never read anything of his before, and had only seen him in interviews or debates, where he carries himself as well as anybody, mostly due to his uncanny ability to recall quotes, facts, examples, etc.  Said Martin Amis (author or the book Money, which is on The List), "With his vast array of geohistorical references and precedents, he is almost Google-like; but...Christopher's search engine is much more finely tuned."  In God is not Great, Hitchens uses this 'google-like' ability to explain why he doesn't believe in any god, and why he feels 'religion poisons everything.'

As far as The List is concerned, I have been able to find some relevance.  Throughout my quest, I have been noting when one book from The List mentions another book, or at least an author.  Well God is not Great takes the cake, making references to eleven different authors and five different books from The List.  Some references tied in nicely to the book's theme, like C.S. Lewis, a tireless promoter and defender of religion, and Salman Rushdie, whose work offended some religious types so much they ordered him executed.  Other times, such as when Hitchens quotes The Adventures of Augie March, it doesn't pertain to religion necessarily, but rather he quotes them because great writers are so good at putting their thoughts on paper, why not borrow from their genius to make a real impact.  After some background research, I did discover Hitchens' love of literature, it seems to be his true passion.  Perhaps this is why he turns to the literary world the way many would turn to, ironically, religion.  I guess Hitchens prefers to look to the good books for advice (Hitchens also can't resist a bad pun).

For those interested, the authors mentioned in one way or another in God is not Great are Salman Rushdie, George Orwell, Saul Bellow, C.S. Lewis, Ian McEwan, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, Graham Greene, Doris Lessing, Philip Roth and Joseph Heller.  As for books, Hitchens refers to Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-four, The Adventures of Augie March, Brideshead Revisited, and A Dance to the Music of Time.

I don't have any non-fiction reads ready to go right now, so my concentration will return solely to The List for the next few days.  I'll hopefully have number thirty four finished soon.  I'm still unsure of what thirty five will be, but am currently, as I type these words, staring at Gone with the Wind. And it's staring right back at me, I think daring me to read it.

A New Year, a new book

My first entry of 2010, and the first entry since I turned 31, which was yesterday. I’m starting to get old. Okay, I'm not that old, but I do find myself starting to think about aging more now than ever. Fortunately I'm as mature as a fifteen year old, so life continues at a good pace.

I went to the library today, and was hoping to pick up Animal Farm. However, it had been checked out, so I walked the stacks of the local library, until I spotted a book I was sure was on the list. The first one I came across was Light in August by William Faulkner. I don’t really know anything about this book either, which I guess I might as well not mention, as that will be the case with most of the books on this list. I recognize the name William Faulkner, but I don’t know anything about him, nor could I name any of his books. I do know that he has two books on the list, the other one being The Sound and the Fury.

Anyway, I’ve checked this book out as well as The Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird; both books I have read. My plan is to read Light in August and then one of the other books. I had only previously read six of the novels on this list, and I don’t want to go into re-runs too soon. So, I’ll read one of these two when I’m finished Light in August to kind of get me a head a little bit, which is necessary after Naked Lunch took so long to read.

#3 – "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs

Okay, I finished Naked Lunch today. I reached my goal of finishing it before New Year’s.

Where to start? I can confidently say Naked Lunch is unlike anything I have ever read, and probably ever will read. Written by 1950’s beat writer William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch explores the world of drugs and addiction, relying on the author’s own experiences as a heroin addict, so much so that at the time of its’ release , it was described as “mostly confessional, not literary.” by Time magazine. It is this that makes the book so unique; there is an absence of story or plot really, and the book is really just a series of vignettes about drug use; it isn’t a novel in the classic sense.

There is a vague storyline about an addict venturing from New York to Mexico to South American and finally to North Africa, just as Burroughs himself did in his life. However, much like the life of a junkie, the point is often lost in a sea of vulgarity and immorality, and the book ends up being difficult to follow and often hard to understand.

Burroughs uses obscene language to effectively communicate many things that a non-junkie just simply wouldn’t understand. He talks of things such as the ‘Algebra of Need’, to describe how junkies often find themselves in such bizarre and sinful situations. “A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope… (and this) need knows absolutely no limit or control.” This explains what is often unexplainable in this book, and why certain characters would find themselves doing some of the things they do. While it may seem inconceivable to the average person, the junkies in the book have no problem doing anything to get that next fix. “Wouldn’t you?” is a question posed by the author, describing what a junkie would do for his next hit. That question can be followed with anything because the answer will always be yes.

The language is one of the most striking aspects of the book, and not because of its vulgarity, but because of its vulgarity in 1959. Today, having been raised in a world of ‘R’ rated movies, cable TV and Internet pornography, Naked Lunch may seem rude, but it isn’t much worse than many other things seen on the Internet or in the movies. If I put my mind to it, I’m sure I could find worse on-line in about ten seconds. However, when this book was first released, the United States and Canada were in a world of ‘Leave it to Beaver’ and The Hardy Boys. Movies didn’t have nudity or graphic violence, and they certainly didn’t use the words that Burroughs uses so freely in Naked Lunch. While literature had more of an edge to it than movies or television, Naked Lunch uses “obscene” language continually from start to finish, describing scenes of sexual exploitation, drug use, illness and death. When first released, the United States postal service at first would not deliver the book to subscribers, arguing they were not obligated to deliver obscene material. In 1966, the state of Massachusetts banned the book, a matter that ended up in the State Supreme Court. There, it was ruled that the State had no right to decide what was moral and what was not. This would be the last obscenity trial against a literary work in the United States.

I will admit that I really struggled through the first half of this book, unsure if I was missing something or not paying close enough attention. It seemed to be page after page of rambling, obscene imagery, talking about things I didn’t know anything about. There aren’t any characters you get to know, and there is not a build up toward a dramatic conclusion; or any conclusion for that matter. After the “story” is finished, the 2nd half of the book consists of letters from Burroughs to various doctors, editors, and friends, offering his opinion on changes to the book and his thoughts on drug use and curing addiction. It is in this section of the book that Burroughs explains many of his motives for writing the book, and more clearly explains many of his experiences that led to its writing. It is here that the reader becomes more understanding of the events of the book.

In one letter to his editor, Burroughs describes exactly what makes Naked Lunch such a difficult read. “THIS IS NOT A NOVEL,” he writes emphatically, stating the book could really be started anywhere as it was never meant to have the chapters in a specific order. The same editor noted in a later interview, “the novel was not created according to a predetermined outline or plan, it is simply a collection of Bill’s experiences retold in the frankest of manners.”

While discussing his experience with every drug under the sun, Burroughs writes to one of the doctors that helped him end his heroin addiction (temporarily), going through a cornucopia of drugs and notes their effects and their habit forming ability. It was fascinating to read a 1950’s perspective on drugs and drug use, in an era when most people would rather have swept the issue under the rug in the hopes it would never be mentioned again. Yet Naked Lunch offers a first-hand perspective of a subject everybody was fascinated by, but nobody would discuss.

Despite some of its more interesting revelations and the shock value of the writing itself, it is not a book I’ll ever pick up again, but still one I’ll never forget. Or understand for that matter. I did not enjoy reading this book and can't really figure out how so many have enjoyed reading it.


Here is Time Magazine’s original review from November 30th, 1962:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,829594,00.html?internalid=atb100

I’m not sure what book I’ll be reading next, but I’m going to go to the library in the next couple of days to find one. Right now I’m thinking Animal Farm. Maybe I need to go lighter after this book. Maybe The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I need something simple, and something fast after spending almost the entire month of December reading this book.