Lord of the Flies – William Golding

William Golding’s 1954 Nobel Prize-winning novel, Lord of the Flies, resonates as a cornerstone of required reading in schools over the last fifty years. While it plays out well as a captivating story, it also serves to teach young students about using symbolism in writing.

In the midst of a war, a group of young boys are marooned on a desert island after the air transport taking them from the war zone makes a crash landing. Ralph and Piggy find each other trying to be brave, but don’t see any of the other passengers. Piggy annoys Ralph but he decides he might be helpful, in some ways, on an island with no adults. They find a large conch shell and Ralph blows it because Piggy has asthma and shallow breaths won’t make the shell bellow. Soon, a large group of children gather around the boy with the conch and they begin a meeting in which Ralph is elected leader over another confident boy named Jack, who develops a strong jealousy toward the chosen leader. Ralph assigns Jack and his choir boys as hunters to try to capture meat and food. Others are assigned to build a fire for a rescue signal, and others are to build shelters.

Nothing seems to go right. While Ralph and Piggy have the right ideas, most of the young boys are looking for adventure and fun, and half of them are ‘littl’uns,’ too small to be much help in any way. The boys used Piggy’s glasses to light the first fire, which burned a large section of the forest, and seemed to have also killed one of the young boys. The first shelter the group built was pretty good, but the second had fewer helpers, and only a couple of the boys helped put up the third, so each one was progressively worse. Jack’s jealousy kept building and when Ralph was angry about all of the boys hunting instead of minding the fire, Jack started trying to talk the boys into choosing himself for leader, which was unsuccessful. A few days later, Jack saw his chance when most of the boys were expressing their fears- ghosts, monsters and beasts. Jack offered to keep them safe, besides, weren’t the boys all tired of all the rules Ralph was trying to push on them?

Two tribes formed and by luring with roasted pig along with the fear of violence to keep them, Jack pulled most of the boys to his side of the island. In their first hunt as a new tribe, they killed a big female pig with small piglets suckling. They put her head on a stake as an offering to the much feared beast nobody had actually seen. Simon, one of the boys sleeping near the pig’s head became entranced in his thoughts, projecting his own voice into the fly-covered head. The Lord of the Flies told him that the fear they felt was close, in fact, it was inside each of them. Simon ran away to escape the head, finding another secret the boys needed to know about. He ran back to Jack’s tribe and they saw him in the darkness as a beast. Their fears came alive and they beat the boy to death before realizing he was just a boy from their camp.

In a couple of night raids, Jack’s tribe had first stolen fire and then they stole Piggy’s glasses taking all of the power through the ability to make fire. The four remaining boys of the original group, Sam, Eric, Ralph and Piggy walked together to the boys fort to ask for the glasses back because Piggy was practically blind without them. A fight escalated, and an accident happened. Not really an accident, the wild tribe hoped to cause damage, but it seemed they really didn’t understand the falling rock would kill Piggy. Sam and Eric were captured and forced into the new tribe, and Ralph became a hunted boy. Throughout the next day, Jack’s tribe systematically hunted Ralph, spreading through the island and walking it together, being sure not to miss the hiding boy. They also started a fire to flush Ralph out. At the last moment, Ralph ran and darted out of the forest toward the beach, where he found a sailor who had come ashore to check on the fire. He took the boys onto their warship, the boys were rescued.

Symbolism as explained by Golding:  Ralph projected the ideal society with rules and order. Piggy served as his brain trust, no power, but good ideas if they were heeded. Jack represented the opposite end of society- evils, lack of morals, acting on emotions. The large female pig symbolized sex and desire. The head on the stick, or the Lord of the Flies, represented subconscious thought, or what some psychologists term the Id. At the end of the story, the sailor stumbled upon the boys fighting a battle to the death. While they were then safe from themselves, the sailor would be taking them on a ship in war time, to essentially fight an adult battle to the death, a sort of transfer of boys to men fighting.

Hollywood – Charles Bukowski

Bukowski’s book, Hollywood, gives the reader a backstage pass to see how the gears move behind a Hollywood film. Many pieces fit together to line up the financial backers, the writer, the director, all the way down to the movie premiere. From the late nights drinks to make a deal, to the ghetto BBQs, this one digs deep for the unedited glimpse behind the scenes and characters that go into creating a movie.

Henry ‘Hank’ Chinaski is an alcoholic writer in his twilight. Most of his old friends have died from their similar bad habits, but his most recent wife, Sarah, has been pushing the health foods and Hank thinks this is the reason he’s outlasting all of the other alcoholic writers from his generation. He’s written several novels and poetry, but his friend, Jon Pinchot, a director, is urging him to write a screenplay. Pinchot has some connections and money which will help it along. What would an alcoholic novelist write a movie about?… His glory days, of course- the dirty bars, the seedy motels and apartments, the women, the fist fights. Hank barely believes his movie will amount to much of anything, but the eager support of Pinchot has him playing along. Throughout the process financial backing appears and disappears, actors want their own directors and production companies withhold payments, threatening to shut down the movie. Pinchot takes matters into his own hands when Firepower Productions tries to back them into a corner by refusing to release the movie deal while they also refuse to make the movie. Finally on the day of the big premiere, Hank gets to relive the good old days, arriving in a limousine to the red carpet.

What does a writer do when his first screenplay is developed into a mildly successful movie? Write a novel about writing the screenplay, of course!

The book was an interesting read and went deep into the process of creating a movie from start to finish. I liked how it put the reader behind the scenes and Bukowski’s details and stories provide a good read.

Exile and the Kingdom – Albert Camus

Albert Camus, the Nobel Award-winning author from Algeria, explores isolation and intense revelations with a series of six short stories in Exile and the Kingdom. Each of the stories has a character who seems to be lost or isolated from their society and each of them finds a way to connect with themselves or those around them in the muck of what is playing out around them.

The first story is ‘The Adulterous Woman,’ in which a wife accompanies her long-time husband to rebuild his dry-goods business after a war. She contemplated why they were still together after so many years- was it because he loved her or because she needed to feel loved? A stop in a foreign desert town helps the woman finally finds an answer, but perhaps not the one she had been looking for.

‘The Renegade’ is the second story. A young man from the outskirts of the Catholic Kingdom joins the church to become the greatest missionary. His hubris broke himself from order of the church to go to a an area forbidden to Christians, a desert land of other gods and deities. He believed his strength would hold out, but after torturous days and nights, he falls to the dark side and must make a decision to defend his God.

The next story, called ‘The Silent Men,’ is about a shop of coopers who return to barrel-making after several weeks of striking for higher wages. Mixed feelings spread throughout the shop: the boss was sour that his workers walked out on him, and the workers were upset that the boss was not so understanding of their situation. Ugly words from the boss did not help the resolution. The main character, Yvars, lived each day to come home to his wife and a glass of anisette enjoying the sunset over the sea. That was his kingdom. While at work, he felt undervalued, but could understand the boss’s view. A tragedy occurs to the boss’s family on the first day back to work, but it still could not overpower the silence in the shop, and Yvars ends up watching the sunset in reflection that night.

The fourth story, ‘The Guest,’ is a tale about a school teacher living alone on the top of a mesa. As the first big snow fell over the plateau that winter, he knew the small group of students would have struggles surviving the winter. That afternoon, he watched two men ride horses up the mesa and welcomed an old acquaintance, a lawman, transporting a prisoner. The lawman quickly delivered the prisoner to the objecting teacher and left to continue preparing for his duties back in the city. The teacher was to continue the transport to a city a small distance away. The prisoner had killed his cousin to help feed his family. The family had hidden the man and it took a while for the law to catch up. A war was forming at their home and the lawmen could not take care of all of their duties themselves. The teacher disagreed with the transport and hurt the lawman’s feelings when he said he would take the prisoner but had no intentions of delivering him to the prison in the other city. The lawman left and the teacher and prisoner spent a night together in the schoolhouse. Several thoughts went through the teacher’s mind throughout the night: Did he need his gun? Did he lock it up? Would he continue the transport? What will happen if he released the prisoner? The next day he contemplated whether his decisions were the best he could have made.

The fifth story was called ‘The Artist At Work.’ A man with special artistic ability was grateful for his abilities and had never asked for more. Early in his career, he knew he had talent and graciously accepted the first contract given to him. There were no major complaints and he soon found love. The years passed, the family grew, and the artist’s work also grew, but he remained humble. Many friends and followers visited the house daily  and at all hours, and the artist was grateful for these friends and critics. An architect he was friends with from childhood came often and gave him honest opinions of art and life. As the years went by, the artist’s fame waned and he realized he needed to rekindle the creativity. Weeks went by and he turned to alcohol, then women, and his work continued to fall behind. Finally, he builds himself a loft to paint in and he believes this will bring everything back, but a change this simple may not be enough to bring an artist back to relevance.

The final story, ‘The Growing Stone,’ is about an engineer who is hired to construct a jetty to protect a small village on a large river delta in South America. The man is touted as a hero before he even proposes a plan. The man meets many of the locals and joins in a Christian festival that follows many of the local customs and seems to be a mix of the new and old religions. The following day, he joins the judge and chief of police to watch a parade, in which his new friend, a chef, has volunteered to carry a large stone on his head to show his gratitude to Jesus for saving him from a sinking ship. After the parade has finished, the engineer has not seen the chef, so he runs to the street and finds him struggling to carry the stone. The engineer takes the stone and quickly walks it to the church himself, but he does not stop there. He continues on to the chef’s hut and drops the stone onto the floor inside. The struggles between new and old were all around in this story, and as the engineer drops the stone, he shows his respect for the people and their ways instead of taking the stone to the church where it was intended to be taken.

Each of the stories were entertaining alone, but altogether they form a great theme of realization and reverence. Characters come to respect their own callings and others around them. Much like his more popular work, The Stranger, the internal struggles of the characters are apparent and central. This is nice read for thinking and personal self-reflection.

Wake Up, Sir! – Jonathan Ames

In my early 20s, a friend attempted to introduce me to ‘Bored to Death,’ an HBO series starring Jason Schwartzman. I just couldn’t get into it- a whiny lead and his misfit friends, a 60-something ‘New Yorker’ editor and pot-addict played by Ted Danson, and a lazy, self-depreciating cartoonist  played by Zach Galifainakis. Several years later, I saw the series on Amazon Prime and revisited it to give it another try. This time, it hooked me, and I binged through all three seasons in about a week. I’ve watched it all the way through, again, since then.

I was pleased to find a book authored by the same writer of the series at a thrift store earlier this year. In my mind, Schwartzman played the lead again, along with all the eccentricities that were included. Written as a first-person narrative, the book Wake Up, Sir! is a week-long adventure that explores the hero’s struggles with alcoholism. Alan Blaine is the lead. He’s working on a novel that explains the odd relationship with his former roommate, an older man who escorts rich, old widows in NYC. Blaine is thirty-years-old, orphaned, and living with his aunt and uncle and Montclaire, New Jersey. He has an affinity for sports jackets and wine. Recently, Blaine had won a lawsuit after slipping on ice and he put the money to good use, hiring a valet named Jeeves (a nice nod to the Wodenhouse character). The novelist’s first book was met with mediocre success, and he has his sights on making a bigger splash with his second work. Tired of avoiding his NRA-card-carrying uncle, Blaine decides to bring Jeeves to upstate NY and spend time writing in a Hasidic community, Sharon Springs. The aunt and uncle were in agreement, and casually mentioned that they had planned on asking him to leave due to his excessive drinking. On the way, he called to check in with his aunt, but his uncle told him an artist colony Blaine had applied to had accepted him. With changing plans, Blaine made a shorter visit to Sharon Springs. The hotel he planned to stay in had a massive fire, but Blaine charmed his way into an undamaged double room where Jeeves could join him. A curiosity had overcome him while calling his uncle and he returned to the phone booth in a drunken state later that night to call ‘Debbie,’ the name from a hand written advertisement that stated she likes her have her ‘kitten’ kissed, along with a phone number. Debbie showed up shortly after, along with her boyfriend. The boyfriend was a giant of a man, referred to as ‘Hill’. Hill beat up on Blaine and broke his nose, but then Blaine kicked Hill’s knee and punched him in the ear, dropping him and allowing for a brisk escape for the hero. The next day, Blaine and Jeeves showed up to the artist retreat, Rose Colony, with two black eyes and a broken nose. This appearance intrigued the fellow guests and he quickly made some friends (and enemies). Though Blaine swore off alcohol after the violent episode, he continued to indulge nightly as it was practically a ritual with the artists at the Rose Colony. Each night brought further-escalating malady until Blaine found himself in the biggest scandal of the colony’s history.

This was a fun read, the main character posed many interesting questions in his thoughts: Why are Jews always persecuted? Why are the Hebrews in so much popular media, but in so few numbers; what if roles were reversed with the Chinese? What do you call the erotic infatuation with another human’s nose?

I hope to someday find another book by Ames in the future, but until then, ‘Bored To Death’ will be on queue.

A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson

Ah, the great story-teller, Bill Bryson. I have heard about many of his books but in my 32nd year on this planet, I have finally picked one up and turned the pages.

Upon moving back to the states in the 1990s, Bryson settled in New Hampshire, just a few hundred yards from the famed Appalachian Trail. He heard stories of crazy hikers walking the trail in entirety, from Georgia to Maine (nearly 2200 miles), and he decided to go on the big walk himself. As he researched and bought camping equipment, he also sent out several letters inviting friends to accompany him on the trail. Stephen Katz was an old friend and the only one who showed interest in Bryson’s invitation. They had, in fact, traveled Europe together several years before. Bryson was a little leery because they had grown sick and tired of each others’ company after a few weeks together in Europe, but welcomed the friend to join if he thought he was up for it. Katz showed up quite overweight and not looking like the image he portrayed to Bryson. Katz was a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, who was currently walking everywhere anyway because his license was revoked due to legal issues. Katz also had a medical condition in which he had to eat sugar frequently due to a bad batch of drugs in his not so distant past. He was not exactly the ideal partner for a 2000 mile walk in the wilderness. Though his partner might have some difficulties, Bryson’s biggest fear became the realization that the wilderness held a multitude of deadly animals, rarely seen from the public standpoint of cities and highways. More specifically, there were bears. Bryson relayed several stories of bear attacks in the history of the trail, eventually coming to the conclusion that there was no sure way to avoid them because there is no clear reason why they attack or why they may simply walk away from the fearful hikers. Other than bears, there were also venomous spiders, deadly snakes, mountain lions and bobcats, though Bryson never confirmed a single sighting of any of these during his summer on the trail.

Bryson and Katz began in Georgia in March of 1996, hiking northward. It was hell starting the trail. Katz became frustrated and threw several packs of food and necessities to lighten his load, not even considering the situation they were in. They had weighty packs along with several days of snow and below-freezing weather those first few weeks. One evening, they opened their tents to find snow waist-deep. The next day, they slowly hiked through the snow and by the end of the day, the sun had melted most of it. The most joyful parts of the book were when they happened to be close enough to a town to restock supplies, stay in a hotel and have a restaurant dinner- always a welcomed treat in comparison with the daily ration of noodles they came to tolerate. After several weeks, they reached Virginia where they took a break from the trail. Katz went back to Iowa to work construction for a few weeks, while Bryson returned home. During those weeks, Bryson took day hikes to stay in shape and hiked several mountains near New Hampshire. One hike in New Hampshire’s White Mountains quickly found him on the edge of hypothermia. He had started on a sunny July morning and halfway to the lodge he was headed to, the pleasant weather had suddenly changed to a freezing fog. Being that it was sunny most days, he had only packed a sweater for warmth and neglected to pack waterproofs. The cold and moisture were penetrating. For over an hour he bared the elements and made it to the lodge just in time to warm up and drink some hot coffee while the the weather turned back to the sunny day that as it had began.

Katz returned in August and the pair went off to finish the hike at the end of the trail in Maine. Though it was the last 200 miles, the trail in Maine was torturous. Thick woods and large elevation changes presented a real challenge. They planned on going through the 100 Mile Woods, then to the summit of Katahdin to finish the summer adventure. After hiking a few days, they made it several miles into the 100 Mile Woods when Bryson went ahead on the trail to filter and refill the water bottles, leaving Katz alone. When Bryson returned, Katz was nowhere to be found. Bryson walked several miles up and down the trail looking for any sign of Katz. Fearing the worst, he even looked over the cliffs to check if his friend had taken a fall to his death. There was no sign of Katz. Bryson set up camp and decided to continue on the trail in the morning in the case that Katz might have missed the rendezvous and was ahead of him. Sure enough, he was waiting several miles ahead and they agreed that it was time to head home.

As a part-time traveler, this book was a nice read. I’m not sure I would ever be up for conquering the trail, but it was an entertaining read. I enjoyed the stories Bryson supplemented about the history of dangerous tales of the trail. They may make a gung-ho, aspiring hiker think twice about wandering off into the woods for a few weeks. The details of the scenery, the towns and people Bryson encountered made the book a complete modern adventure, and I have to say I look forward to more from Bryson when the time comes.

Rating: *********9/10

A Wrinkle in Time – Madeline L’Engle

A Wrinkle in Time is another great fantasy work, focusing on a fair mixture of science and religion. L’Engle explores topics which focus on ideas that many young adults can struggle with on their way to adulthood.

Meg Murray is a young teen who struggles a lot with school. Many of her classmates consider her an idiot, but when it comes down to it, she does very well at math and science (with two scientists as parents, it’s easy to see why). Her father has been missing for a couple of years after leaving on a science mission with the government. Her mother continues her chemistry experiments at home, patiently awaiting her husband’s return. Meg also has younger twin brothers who do fair in school and get along well with their peers, so they have a hard time understanding why it’s all so difficult for Meg. The youngest member of the Murray family is Charles Wallace. He was late in developing speech, and many people in their town believed he would be dumb, but he was actually very mature for a five-year-old. He had a very impressive vocabulary, along with a nearly sixth sense of mind-reading as he always knew what Meg was thinking.

As Meg and Charles Wallace were walking through the woods to their new neighbor’s home, they befriended Calvin, an older boy who was a star athlete and student. Calvin also had some extra perception capabilities, like Charles Wallace. Together, they met the ‘witch’ neighbors and were soon whisked away to find their father. The witches revealed their dad was on a distant planet trying to save the universe from an evil darkness that was taking over stars and planets. Mr. Murray was not the first to battle evil, as the witches explained, others like Jesus, the Buddha, famous artists and scientists also had fought against the evil forces.

As the book explains, they use a form of travel called ‘tessering’ which gets them from planet to planet and into other galaxies in the universe. Soon, they land on the target planet, Camazotz, where they found a society that was completely conformed to do every task at the same time. Citizens were exterminated or retrained when they ‘fell out of line’ or caught an illness. Charles Wallace, in his naivety, decided to challenge the man who was explaining the order and conformity to the group, and he became hypnotized. The new Charles Wallace led the other two children to their father and Meg used a special gift to free him. Charles Wallace then led the crew to ‘IT’ to try to have them hypnotized and join the society as well. He was a completely different and untrustworthy person at that point. Mr. Murray tessered Meg and Calvin to another planet to escape, leaving little Charles Wallace to IT.

The group had tessered to another planet in Camazotz’ solar system. There, Meg was nursed to health and found a true belief, and goodness and love were sent back to Camazotz to untrap Charles Wallace so he could return home. The conformity of Camazotz and IT were essentially short-circuited by this emotion as they had little free will or capability of truly understanding love.

As mentioned before, important topics in the book focused on young adults gaining a better understanding of the world. L’Engle emphasized the importance of the perseverance of good over evil frequently in the book. She also stressed the fight against conformity and importance of free will as the children explored Camazotz.

This was a fun and quick read. I generally enjoy sci-fi, and those of course were my favorite parts of this book. I liked how they explained ‘tessering’ and traveling at hyperspeed. L’Engle did a great job of describing the emotions and physical feeling of tessering through Meg’s character.

Rating: ********8/10

On The Road – Jack Kerouak

On The Road, “Yass, Yass, egad, whoopee!” as Dean would have said. The book that shot Kerouak into notoriety also catapulted the ‘Beat Generation’. What is Beat? Beat is not knowing but seeking, not just living but experiencing, not just observation but immersion, it is IT! Kerouak’s characters felt like getting out and living life to the fullest. It is driving or hitchhiking across the US in a couple of days just to say hi to a friend, endless drunken parties or going just to go. While they seemed to have wonderful carefree lives, they also had periphery lives that included aunts, parents, grandparents, and multiple wives and kids they had to neglect to fulfill their longing of seeking. When he had enough of one wife, Dean would leave her with child and head to the other coast to live with his other wife and kids, and spending every dime to get there. A constant life of spinning wheels.

“What’s your road, man?- holy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It’s an anywhere road for anybody anyhow.”

The main character, Sal Paradise, started the series of journeys in 1947. He left New Jersey to visit friends in San Francisco with the intentions of meeting a friend and finishing his novel. He hitched to Denver, stayed a few days, and then went to the West coast. He stayed with a friend, Remi, and guarded a camp for shipmen in San Francisco. He carried a gun and was supposed to keep the sailors quiet and sober instead of joining the fun, which was not his cup of tea. Eventually, he moved on to Los Angeles where he met a nice Mexican woman and joined her village to pick cotton. Her family was not accepting of Sal so he moved on and went back to New Jersey.

“I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.” 

The next year, Sal had finished his book and his friend, Dean, came from Denver to New Jersey to pick him up and drive west. They went south to New Orleans, across Texas and up to Denver. In New Orleans, they stayed with a friend, ‘Old Bull Lee’ (said to be a character based on William S. Burroughs). Lee was wise but a heavy experimenter of drugs, spending most of the day in a haze of heroin. When he was alert in the mornings, Lee kept the crew entertained and tried to convince Sal to stay with him and forget his friends, who lacked much ambition. When the time came, Sal joined his friends and continued on to Denver. Upon arriving, Dean left Sal and his ex-wife, Mary Lou, to meet up with his wife Camille. For nearly a week Dean was gone, and in the meantime, Mary Lou left with another guy. After Dean’s return, he was solemn and careless of Sal, so Sal decided to buy a bus ticket back to New York.

“I realized these were all the snapshots, which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking that their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered, stabilized-within-the-photo lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, or actual night, the hell of it, the senseless nightmare road.”

The following spring in 1949, Sal packed up from New York and went to meet Dean in San Francisco. Dean had had part of his thumb amputated after an infection caused by hitting Camille. He was starting to show his age, he went from a bright beacon for Sal to a load of childish nonsense, but Sal stuck with him. Together, they left for Denver. Few friends were left there and they spent a few days digging the jazz joints. One night, Dean stole car after car for drunk kicks and the next morning they found out the last car they drove back to the where they were staying was a detective’s car. They quickly left Denver and headed to New York.

“As the cabby drove us up the infinitely dark Alameda Boulevard along which I had walked many and many a lost night the previous months of the summer, singing and moaning and eating the stars and dropping the juices of my heart drop by drop on the hot tar, Dean suddenly drove up behind us in the stolen convertible and began tooting and tooting and crowding us over and screaming.”

The final trip in the story saw Sal planning to go to Mexico City, via Denver. While in Denver, Dean came from NYC to drive them. With plans to get a Mexican divorce from Camille, Dean then intended to join his new love, Inez, in New York. After the long journey, Sal stayed in the hospital with dysentery for several days and Dean left Sal in Mexico to go home because he accomplished his own goal of the divorce. At that point, Sal realized how unsympathetic and shallow Dean’s life and friendship was.

Here’s a quick sketch of my image of the book:

Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Love in the Time of Cholera was my first experience in reading Nobel Prize winning author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The mix of love and heartache made this a great read.

The book opened with Dr. Juvenal Urbino providing his professional medical expertise to the death of his friend, Jeremiah de Saint Amour. Later that day, Dr. Urbino, too, would meet his fate. The real story, however, was the relationship of Dr. Urbino’s wife, Fermina Daza, and her childhood sweetheart, Florentino Ariza.

Florentino Ariza became entranced with the school girl as soon as he saw her while delivering a telegram to her father. She was constantly escorted by her aunt and that limited chances of Florentino Ariza making her acquaintance. Aunt Escolastica realized the young man who always sat waiting in the park nearby reading poetry was waiting on Fermina Daza. So, she did her best to provide the opportunity for him to approach the young lady. For months he continued this habit until he was brave enough to approach and ask the aunt to give them some privacy. He delivered her a letter and asked if he could speak to her in the future. Love letters began and continued for a couple of years until Fermina Daza’s father requested a meeting with Florentino Ariza. Lorenzo Daza demanded the boy leave his daughter alone and Florentino refused. The father believed his daughter was worthy of a more distinguished suitor. Lorenzo Daza sent his daughter away to live with her late mother’s family to let the love cool down. Florentino worked in the telegraph office,so  he made the connections to send messages back and forth with Fermina during her time away. Suddenly upon her return, Fermina realized she did not truly love Florentino and left him. Florentino’s heart was broken to the point of illness.

Soon after the break, Dr. Urbino met the Daza family and began courting the young woman as well. With more success, Dr. Urbino found Fermina’s father, Lorenzo, agreeing to the marriage. Fermina and Dr. Urbino were married for 50 years, while Florentino Ariza patiently waited for Dr. Urbino’s death and his second chance with his true love, Fermina Daza.

Fermina Daza’s marriage was filled with little love. After the death of her husband, Florentino soon returned to proclaim his love for her. She still did not love him, but in fact, resented him for calling on her so soon after her husband died. Florentino did not give up; he began writing her again. These later letters were not so much love letters, but more of a philosophy of love, which struck a chord with her. She began inviting him to weekly tea, which turned into a weekly card game with her son and daughter-in-law.

The book’s theme revolved around the sickness of heartbreak. During Florentino Ariza’s lowest points, his mother feared he had cholera as physical illness joined the emotional sickness of the heartbroken. He spent many lonely years longing to rejoin his sweetheart, passing the time with 622 lovers who each paled in comparison to the sweet Fermina. At one point in the story, he saw her in a mirror in a restaurant. He watched her eat and talk with friends and family for over an hour. He then offered the proprietor anything he could to buy the mirror off the wall and take it home.

While most of the book was sad, you couldn’t help but cheer on Florentino Ariza as he waited patiently and then seized the opportunity to pursue his love again. In reality, he was not the most likable character. The women he found love with included a 14-year-old girl he was the guardian of, along with 621 other women, often widows and married mistresses. However, the heartache he suffered and pain he felt made the reader sympathize with the character and hope that it all worked out in the end.

Rating: ********8/10

Uncle Tom’s Cabin -Harriet Beecher Stowe

I recently finished Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as a fan of history and morose literature, I really enjoyed this read. During an unfortunate period of US history, Stowe took an initiative in the fight for abolition and the equality of humanity in the US. This book was written over a decade before the Emancipation Proclamation, and I’m sure her writing made a strong influence in the abolitionist movement.

Prior to reading this, I had heard allusions to ‘Uncle Toms’ as being an African American taking a subservient stance toward Caucasians. I feel the book had a completely different point- a point of forgiveness and kindness. The atrocities Uncle Tom experienced never faltered his Christian beliefs and his hope that there was a chance of goodness in everything. As each episode he went through became worse and worse, his love and drive to ‘save’ everyone became stronger.

The book begins with Tom’s owners, the Shelby’s, selling Tom and Henry as a financial decision to help their farm. Tom submitted to the situation, but Eliza took her son, Henry, and fled north in hopes of freedom in Canada.

Tom was taken to sell at an auction in New Orleans, and along the way, a wealthy man named Augustine St. Claire bought him as a driver and caretaker for his daughter, Eva. Eva was a delightful girl and as the story drew on, it was apparent she was ill and would soon be lost. Tom enjoyed Eva and her interest in his Bible. Before she passed away, she declared she would be spending the rest of her time in heaven and wished all the people in her life would remember her and strive to treat each other kindly, quit enslaving people and meet her in heaven when their time on Earth was finished. Upon her death, St. Claire announced he would free Tom and the other slaves, but his life was taken in a pub before he could make the necessary legal provisions to free his slaves. His wife sent most of the slaves to auction and Tom was bought by Simon Legree. Legree was a truly evil man and used two overseers, whom he pitted against each other. He was harsh in his treatment of the slaves he owned and resolved that there would be no talk of God or the Bible on his land. He decided one way or another, he would beat the religion out of Tom.

Eliza’s story took a different path as she fled north. She was taken in by a family of Quakers and soon reunited with her husband, George, who was miraculously coming to the same family on his own path to freedom. They joined together and found freedom in Canada and lived happily ever after.

This was a fairly sad book that opened the eyes of the reader to the common treatment of slaves in the South, and the indifference of the Northerners. A repeating theme was that many Southern farmers said they planned on freeing their slaves, but this usually was put off too long and their deaths brought their slaves to the auction block to continue their servitude at another plantation.

I’ll finish with my favorite quote of the book, which was from a conversation with Tom and St. Claire –

St. C- “Why Tom, you couldn’t have possibly have earned, by your work, such clothes and such living as I have given you.”

Tom- “Knows all that, Mas’r St. Claire; Mas’r’s been too good; but, Mas’r I’d rather have poor clothes, poor house, poor everything, and have ’em mine, than have the best, and have them any man else’s, – I had so, Mas’r; I think it’s nature, Mas’r.”

Chain Reaction – Simone Elkeles

A third in the ‘Perfect Chemistry’ series, Chain Reaction is a YA novel that follows the story of Luis Fuentes and Nikki Cruz as they fall in love in Chicago. The previous two books, Perfect Chemistry and Rules of Attraction, follow Luis’ older brothers, Alex and Carlos, as they deal with love and gang alliances as young adults.

Luis enters high school and meets Nikki, and he knows she’s something he needs in his life. They are from different neighborhoods and have very different lives. Nikki is from an affluent family with parents who care about appearances and reputations. Luis is from the rougher side of town, both of his brothers were previously involved with gangs and push him to stay on the straight and narrow. Luis knows something is going on with the gangs and he wants to have a chance to take them down once and for all to end their association with his family. Nikki is drawn to Luis but is very hesitant because she fell in love and had a miscarriage with another guy who ended up joining the gang and neglecting her.

As the story builds, Luis is forced by the gang leader to be more and more involved. On one hand, he knows this will get him closer to bringing them down; on the other hand, he knows Nikki will have nothing to do with him if he’s a banger.

Okay, it’s mush. But, admittedly, it was a fun read, as were the others in this series. I liked how the novels are set in alternating chapters as both main characters tell their side of the story. It has a love story for the girls and gangs for the boys, so, even though it’s a YA romance, I have male students that enjoy reading these books.

Rating:******* 7/10