What is Your Title?

I'm a little over halfway through Native Son right now, and it's fantastic. Right now, it would be in my top five books from the list. But while I've been reading it, I keep finding myself thinking back to my last book, Their Eyes Were Watching God. What I keep thinking back to though, is on line I read, on the 160th of 193 pages; specifically, the line "They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."

Whenever I read the title of a book, in the book, I can't help but think of the "Family Guy" episode where Peter says he "usually only gets this excited when they say the title of the movie, in the movie." We then see Peter watching "Clear and Present Danger," "As Good as it Gets," and "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace." I must admit it does excite me in some small way as well.

Reading the title of the book in the book this time, started me thinking of what other books from the list have had this happen. However, unlike references to other books on the list, I haven't been keeping track of every instance, so I'm forced to go by memory.

#31 - "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers

When I began reading this novel, I have to admit I was a little worried it would be another Light in August.  That is to say I was worried I wouldn't like it; I was worried I would find it depressing.  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter isn't at all what I was expecting, and a read I very much enjoyed.

Set in the South, in the late thirties, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is more a commentary on the poor, uneducated South as a whole, instead of focusing on race relations as most books set in this time and place do.  Now that isn't to say race relations aren't an important subject, it is to say that I don't necessarily enjoy reading about it due to it's (rightfully so) depressing nature.

The story centers around a man named John Singer, a man who isn't of any real importance and who is really only notable for being a deaf-mute.  He lives in a boarding house in a small, unnamed town, works for a local jeweler and goes about his business day in and day out.  Over time, Singer's life becomes entangled with four different towns people, four people who enjoy talking to him, though he can't hear them.  They enjoy spilling their guts to him as if he were a living, breathing diary, and as each of these people tell him more and more, the more they come to not only appreciate his 'listenning', they need it.  When Singer leaves town to visit a friend, all four find themselves lost and worried.  Worried he may never return and they'll be left without somebody to air their grievances to.

But book is really about Singer's four friends and their lives in the rural South.  They deal with family problems, race relations, addiction, poverty and even puberty.  Singer, more or less a stranger even to the reader, is merely their common bond.  I think it is the characters, most of whom I found so interesting, that made it possible for such difficult subjects to be handled so well.  While there were bad things happening throughout the town, the characters the book focuses on were not bad themselves.  They were merely people caught up in that period,  prisoners of their surroundings.

Another element of the book I found fascinating was the social commentary offered.  Despite being written in 1940, before World War II and before the civil rights movement in the United States, the book makes some fairly bold, yet accurate predictions and may even be the origin of a rather historic event in that country's history.

The characters often discuss the happenings in Europe with Hitler and the Nazis, a subject that no doubt dominated the headlines in 1939.  And while the Nazis' persecution of the Jews was well known at the time, their ultimate fate was not.  Yet the book speaks of an eventual slaughter of the Jews, long before it happened and long before it was ever public knowledge.  And that persecution is then compared to the happening in the US, and the persecution of blacks, not only in the South but throughout the nation.

"The Nazis rob the Jews of their legal, economic and cultural life. Here the Negro has always been deprived of these. And if wholesale and dramatic robbery of money and goods as not taken place here as in Germany, it is simply because the negro has never been allowed to accrue wealth in the first place."

I have always found it ironic how books and movies about the war always talk of the struggle to liberate the people of Europe against the racial oppression from the Third Reich, but never do I see that perception pointed the other direction, where a similar persecution was occurring in the United States at the same time. During World War II, the US was a country where black people were not allowed to go to the movies, eat in restaurants and in many states were not allowed to vote. Segregation was the law of the land, and it divided all public institutions including schools, the military and public transportation.  The 'land of the free' was anything but for the nation's minorities, who suffered levels of persecution that are hard to fathom today.  But really, it was only a little over 40 years ago that you would find two different water fountains at many gas stations.

When two of John Singer's friends discuss this very persecution, they each offer their plan to end racial segregation and oppression in the South.  I was, simply put, blown away, when Mady Copeland,  a black doctor, tells of his plan to "lead more than one thousand Negroes in this country on a march.  A March to Washington.  All of us together in one solid body."  I can only wonder if Martin Luther King's March on Washington in 1963 was born from this book, twenty-five years earlier.  Not since Snow Crash and its' prediction of Google Maps has there been are more accurate foretelling of the future in a book from The List.  And I'd argue this one was a little more significant.

You can read Time Magazine's original review from June 10, 1940 right here.
 


Next up is Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, the story of the fire-bombing of Dresden during the Second World War.  While I've heard of Vonnegut's novels, I've never read any of them, and don't really know what to expect.  I do know that Vonnegut was hired to tutor Rodney Dangerfield in "Back to School," but other than that, I'm at a loss.

#23 - "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson

With only two days left until the unofficial one year anniversary of my starting this list, it doesn't look like I'm going to reach my goal of 25 books in the first year.  But, I have finished Snow Crash, my 23rd novel.  I've learned a few things, and I'm confident I can read 27 books in the next year, to make up for this year's short comings.

Snow Crash is the first Sci-Fi book from The List I've read, and one of only a couple on The List.  While I enjoy the odd Sci-Fi movie, I'd be lying if I said I was a fan of the books.  For that reason, I was a little nervous going into this one; worried that I'd become disinterested like I did with Neuromancer, and that it would take me forever to read.  I'll be the first to admit it, that wasn't the case, and I actually enjoyed reading this book quite a bit.

The protagonist, or hero, is aptly named Hiro Protagonist (I'm not making that up).  He's a computer hacker who delivers pizza to make ends meet, and is known as the greatest sword fighter in the world.  He spend his time in the Metaverse; a virtual-reality world that people hang out in, socialize on, run businesses, own homes, travel, communicate and learn.  After meeting a young female kourier (there is no post office in the not-too-distant future) named Y.T., they become entangled in a plot to spread a deadly virus known as Snow Crash.  This virus not only disables the computer it's opened on, but also the mind of the person who opens it.  Hiro and Y.T. must find the source of the virus and help destroy it, before it destroys them and their world.


The world they live in, in this not-too-distant future, does contain many of the elements that tend to drive me crazy about Sci-Fi novels.  Why does the future have to be so bleak all the time!?  Why can't it just be like today, with more technology?  But despite the world Hiro and Y.T. live in not having countries (they've been replaced by privately run 'burbclaves') or laws, or seemingly any order, it doesn't come off as bleak as other books I've read or movies I've seen.

While the time period is never specified, I get that feeling that since the book was written in 1992, the story takes place sometime in the early 21st century, or to put it another way, what is currently referred to as "the past."  And it is this I found so interesting about the book.  Many of Stephenson's descriptions are very accurate for his future, our past.

The Metaverse, the virtual-reality world so many spend their time in, isn't much different from the Internet today.  While there isn't any real reference to a similar type of social networking, the Metaverse is a place where people meet from anywhere in the world, not unlike Facebook.  Relationships tend to be less personal, like Facebook, but often more informative, also like Facebook.  One of Hiro's ex-girlfriends hates using the Metaverse for relationships, complaining they "...distort the way people talk to each other, and she wants no such distortion in her relationships."  It fits Facebook and Twitter friendships to a tee if you ask me.

Another program frequently used throughout the book is the Librarian, which I have equated to Wikipedia or even just Google.  The Librarian is simply a computer program in the Metaverse that is there to answer questions.  From anywhere in the world, one can access the Librarian to find out the information they need.  When Hiro needs to learn something about ancient societies or if he needs the blueprints of a famous cargo ship, he heads to the Librarian to find the answer.  Like most answers found on-line, the Librarian's information is merely a compilation of information entered by various different people, from all over the world.  But, unlike Wikipedia, it seems it doesn't need to be taken with a grain of salt.

And perhaps the most similar program Hiro uses to today's actual programs is called 'Earth.'  Basically, it's Google Earth, providing satellite imagery of the entire planet and directions on how to get anywhere from anywhere.  It even provides street views to the more prominent locations and lists businesses and attractions; exactly like the program so many people use everyday now. The only difference between the Metaverse version and the Google version might be that in the Metaverse the images are only a few minutes old, where as on Google Earth they can sometimes be a few years old. (The horrors!)

For all his accurate descriptions of future technologies, there were a few misses.  While everybody in this future records video of nearly everything, they do it on 'videotape.'  And while people in the future listen to music everywhere they go, they still use Walkmans.  Ironically, these were officially discontinued by Sony last week, where I would have thought they had been discontinued ten years ago.  Who has been buying Walkmans the past ten years to warrant their continued production?  Lastly, not really a technological miss, but I found it funny; Hiro describes how it is possible to stop a viral idea, then says, "...as happened with Nazism, bell bottoms and Bart Simpson t-shirts."  I guess Stepheson could never have imagined that a show only two or three years old at the time this book was written, would still be on 18 years later, so I'll cut him a little slack.


When trying to decide what to read next, I picked On the Road by Jack Kerouac.  I currently have 18 books from The List, sitting on my desk; 13 from the library, and two that I own.  As a result, I recently incurred three fines, $0.70 each for On the Road, Gravity's Rainbow and Herzog.  Since I've had these books for over a month, I figured I should start reading one of them instead of going to one of my more recent checkouts.

Virtuous and holy; chosen from above,

I`ve chosen Snow Crash as my 23rd book from The List.  I was conflicted in choosing my next read.  I`ve wanted to try and get through 25 books within a year of first starting this list, and I`ve only three weeks to read the last three books.  My first thought was that to do this, I`d need to read some shorter books, and, let`s say, easier books.  A couple of my current checkouts would fit nicely into this list, especially Animal Farm and Lolita.  Both are short, I have a vague idea of the plot line of both, and both are regarded as classics, so I`ve no doubt I`ll enjoy them.

But the other four books I have checked out are...quite large.  There`s Infinite Jest at a hefty 980 pages, and Gone with the Wind at 998 pages.  There's really no way I could finish either of these in enough time to finish 25 books within one year of starting.

As I leaned toward one of the shorter selections, something hit me.  If I continue to read only the shorter books, I`ll run into a problem later on, when I have only lengthy books remaining.  I don`t want to find myself trying to get to fifty next October, or worse, trying to get to 100, and having seven thousand-page behemoths left.

As a compromise, I`ve gone with Snow Crash, which clocks in at 470 pages.  Not the longest book out there by any means, but it is Sci-Fi, which I`m not a big fan of.  That'll likely slow down my progress a little.  Hopefully not too much though, I have only two weeks to read three books.  Hmmm....it's not looking good.