Chapter Eighteen: Tender is the Night

As a prelude to re-reading The Great Gatsby before seeing the movie, I decided to check out this other F. Scott Fitzgerald classic that I've never read, mostly because I had heard it was set largely in France and had it strongly recommended by a fellow French major.  I'm definitely glad I decided to read it!  Of course, the little bits and pieces in French were fun for me, but I really enjoyed the style of the writing as well.  Most of all, I appreciated how Fitzgerald unrolls the telling of the story and how this affected and changed my perceptions of the novel's major characters.

Chapter Seventeen: Sophie's World

So I decided to class it up a bit and re-read Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, translated into English from Norwegian.  It's either a novel masquerading as a history of philosophy or a history of philosophy masquerading as a novel... it's hard to tell which, but that's not a bad thing!  I felt like I was learning something as I read (even if I've already forgotten most of the philosophy mentioned!) and there was enough plot interspersed with the philosophy lessons to hold my interest.  Things do get rather funky, plot-wise, toward the very end of the book, so I found it a bit hard to follow right at the end, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Chapter Sixteen: Swamplandia! (and Karen Russell herself)

It probably isn't a children's book, but this novel by Karen Russell about the teenage members of the Bigtree clan sucked me into its swampy world from the beginning.  The story is pretty intense, with a mother dead of cancer, a grandfather suffering from dementia, a largely absent father, increasing financial woes, and of course the regular stresses that come with being a teenager.  The's book's setting is mostly split between the family's gator-wrestling venue deep in the South Florida swamplands and the innards of a truly awful mainland Florida amusement park, and the beauty and physical danger of the wilderness stands in stark contrast to the ugliness and moral danger of Floridian suburbia.  I won't reveal how the book ends, but it held me in its grasp through the last page.

Through a pleasant twist of fate, mere days after I finished reading Swamplandia! I found out that the author was coming to my college's campus, so I had the chance to attend a reading and question-and-answer period during which Russell read from her most recent publication, a collection of short stories (Vampires in the Lemon Grove).  It was fascinating to get to hear Russell read from her other work and talk about her writing process, her inspiration, her own reading list, etc. right after I had finished reading her novel.  She explained how Swamplandia! evolved out of a short story she had written, how her own childhood spent in South Florida had influenced her (and how her own experience differed from her writing), and the influence of the swamp itself on her writing.  It was really interesting to learn a bit about the production of the novel I'd just read, and her reading from another story--as well as her generally quirky personality--definitely make me want to check out her other work, so watch this space for more Karen Russell.

Chapter Fifteen: Better Than Running at Night

Better Than Running at Night, by Hillary Frank, was a random and fortuitous find.  I was really in the mood for some good young adult fiction, and I thought I'd glance at the Bard library's "juvenile browsing" section, which is pretty limited.  Tucked in between bigger books, this little paperback caught my eye as much for its small size as for its colorful cover.  Reading the back of the cover, I was intrigued to find it's about college students, which in my experience is pretty unusual for a children's book or a book for adults.  (When was the last time you read a good novel about college students?  The last time I did was two years ago, roughly.  If you have read any good novels about college students, leave me a comment!  I'd be pleased to check it out.)
Anyway, as for the book itself, I really enjoyed it.  Rather than being divided into chapters, it's in fairly short sections with good titles and even little drawings (which is nice, since the narrator-protagonist is studying drawing at an art college).  I really liked the main character; I could relate to her, and she wasn't written too melodramatically.  She is a reasonable person while being an interesting character, and moreover she's a strong female protagonist, which is always great.  Of course she has her share of problems, but she doesn't whine about them.  And she's got her quirks, to add some spice to the story.  I'm not sure if I would actually think of this as a young adult novel; it's a bit hard to classify, but I heartily recommend it.

Chapter Fourteen: American Gods

Neil Gaiman's American Gods is a book I've been meaning to read for months, ever since Gaiman came to Bard and did a reading of a short piece he was still working on.  Many of my fellow reading-attendees were shocked and dismayed to hear that I hadn't read American Gods, so I dedicate this post to them (they know who they are, unless they've forgotten...).  I am definitely glad that I finally got around to reading this book, although (unlike other Gaiman books I've read) I can't see myself reading it again, at least not any time in the near future. It was a really interesting read, and it definitely kept my attention--I liked the main character and the supporting characters, the mythology was interesting, and the U.S. geography was fun--but on the whole this novel was a little too dark and intense, and Gaiman's characteristic humor was a little too sparse, to become one of my absolute favorites. Still, I would certainly recommend reading American Gods, especially if you're a fan of mystery or suspense. (Although there are elements of fantasy or sci-fi, it felt more like magical realism to me, and I wouldn't recommend it if someone said they were looking for a good fantasy or sci-fi read.)

Chapter Thirteen: Room

Although I was a bit nervous about reading a book that promised to include some fairly dark content (it's about a woman who has been kidnapped, kept in captivity for years, and is trying to raise her son in the small room where they're kept), I found myself really gripped by this novel by Emma Donoghue.  It was hard to put down!  I think a big part of why I found it so absorbing and readable was that Donoghue narrates in the voice of the five-year-old child who has been born and raised in this room: this choice of narration allows a lot of the heaviest information to be filtered, in the sense that the experience of captivity, which seems absolutely atrocious to readers used to living outside of captivity, just seems normal to the narrator, so while his accounts of his mother allowed me to glimpse the horror of the situation, I didn't feel the horror pressing directly on me as I read.  Still, it was a bit of a heavy read, but I liked it a lot.

Chapter Twelve: Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog

As one might guess from its title, Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog by Jerome K. Jerome  is a humorous read.  It's not children's fiction, but its flights of fancy, style of humor, all-male cast, riverine setting, and of course all of the messing about--simply messing about--in boats reminded me a lot of The Wind in the Willows, one of my all-time favorites.  This book doesn't have much of a plot, but I was too busy enjoying the narration to mind!  This light, delightful read was able to carry me away from a harsh New England winter into a mild English boating trip, and I was thoroughly pleased!