Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

What happens when you have time to kill and find yourself between books?  You go to Project Gutenberg and download a classic essay that has withstood the sands of time.  Project Gutenberg, to know it is to love it.

Fully titled “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick”, but more popularly known simply as “A Modest Proposal”, it is a short essay in which Swift proposes the eating of Irish babies as a solution to the societal ills of poverty and overcrowding.  The reason this essay has had a place in the human psyche for centuries is because it is as pertinent now as it was then.

Why, then, hasn’t anyone tried to mimic Swift with an updated version satirizing current events?  My guess is that deadpan satire is all but dead.  Our Jon Stewarts and Stephen Colberts only work because they are clearly lampooning politics.  A Swiftian essay on, say Greece for example, is much more likely to be taken as a serious and worthwhile suggestion by those who think the current situation is being handled gracefully.  I’m looking at you Germany.

Some German intellectual really needs to step up and write that essay.  “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the People of Greece From Being a Burden to Themselves and the European Union, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public”.  It really has to be in German.  Wouldn’t have the same impact in English.  Get cracking.

“A Modest Proposal” is worth reading if only to see how far we haven’t come.  It doesn’t take a lot of time to read, but will likely stay with you if you are of the social justice bent.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Say Neil Gaiman decided to put together a bunch of short stories from various authors from various times which all had the theme of an animal which doesn’t quite belong in nature.  You’d want to read that book, right?  Yes, yes you would.  Enter, “Unnatural Creatures”.   As an added benefit, proceeds from the sale of “Unnatural Creatures” will benefit the nonprofit 826DC, whose mission it is to foster creative writing skills in children.  Almost makes me feel guilty that I got my copy from the library.  Almost.

There are sixteen short stories found in this volume.  Contained therein are werewolves, unusual spots, griffins, cocatoucans, phoenixes, and more.  The stories are written by a whole list of authors you probably have never heard of and were first penned from as far back as the late 1800s up to present day.  The high quality of said stories shows that Gaiman went to great lengths to choose the perfect sixteen to go together.  There isn’t a loser in the bunch.

Each story opens with a short couple of paragraphs by Gaiman introducing the author as well as describing what drew him to the story.  It’s a nice touch that often fails when putting compilations together, but not here.  Gaiman is succinct and descriptive, a gift that is hard to come by.

My loan from the library expired and I’m finding it more difficult than it is worth to find a list of the stories on the interwebs so I’ll have to go by memory of some of my favorites.  And sorry, but I’m not going to remember any of the authors.  The one about the unusual spot on the dining room tablecloth actually doesn’t have a name, but a picture for a name.  It’s almost Lovecraftian with its tale of extradimensional intrigue.  Another that stands out is the one about the epicurean club with poor long-term memory searching for a morsel that they haven’t digested yet.  Probably my favorite is “The Griffin and the Minor Canon” which is about a Griffin who longs to see what he looks like and finds his likeness in a statue on the parapets of a church in which the Canon resides.  It is certainly the most complex of the sixteen.  But really, you can’t go wrong with any of them.

Even though I did not buy this book, “Unnatural Creatures” is worth buying.  Not only do you get a solid collection of short stories, but you also get to benefit a good cause.  Short stories, to me, are the most difficult literary form to do well so when you find a good collection like “Unnatural Creatures”, you should treasure it.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

“A Mercy” tells a strange tale in a strange way.  It is a short book and it is broken into titleless chapters.  Each change in chapters is also a change in voice with one of the characters taking over the storytelling.  It is a very jarring way to introduce new characters.  You end up a little bit lost as you try to figure out who’s talking and how they fit into the larger narrative.  As you get to know the characters and recognize their unique voices you end up feeling like you know them, like they are a part of you.  I am not sure if this is because of how the story is told or because of Morrison’s gift of writing.

The story takes place in colonial America around 1690 and revolves around the lives and happenings of individuals residing in a single household.  What you end up getting is six, maybe seven, different stories all coalescing into one narrative.  Most of the voices are female and most of the voices are also slaves of one variety or another.  The main character is Florens, a slave of the farm owner, Jacob Vaark.  Every odd chapter is told from Florens’ point of view with every other individual on the farm taking one of the even chapters.

The story begins with Florrens expressing her feelings to an absent and nameless blacksmith as she travels alone to his house to seek his help in curing a case of smallpox that has visited the Vaark farm.  The smallpox breakout is the plot device used to wrap up the stories of all of the characters.  We jump back and forth in time as we discover how each character came to find themselves on the Vaark farm and how all of the interpersonal relations were established.  Throughout, Morrison incorporates a variety of themes in the story including slavery, abandonment, religion, society, and being a woman in colonial America (hint: It ain’t pretty).

This is not an easy read but it is a quick read and very engaging.  You should really pick up this book.  I can’t recall ever reading a story set in America before the United States were formed so that makes this story unique as well.  Slavery existed.  Indentured servitude existed.  But there were also free black men.  You have this strange amalgam of systems that eventually coalesced into the slavery we all know and hate.  It was interesting times.  And by interesting I mean horrible.  Horrible, horrible times.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

And we’re done with Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy.  “Edge of Eternity” picks up where “Winter of the World” left off.  We follow the same families as the previous books, but this time the events are bookended by the rise of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I feel like a broken record at this point because book three has all of the same strong points and weak points as the previous two books.  The historical portions of the book are quite interesting at times but the interpersonal relationships leave room for much improvement.

More obviously than the other two books, “Edge of Eternity” is innately political.  This should come as little surprise considering Follett actually lived through all of the events and so has more to say about them.  For instance, while he does an ok job of portraying the conservative viewpoints of Nixon, Regan, et al., his disagreement with that viewpoint shines through more than in previous books.  It’s hard to live through the Civil Rights era and not have an unbiased view of the wrongs committed.  It’s also a bit welcome, though, as his previous books in the trilogy always seemed a little too “Yay, America!” while not really covering the serious shortcomings of the country at the times.

Ken Follett’s times are also partially my times as well and I have to say, seeing non-historical characters in historical situations that I’m more familiar with is disconcerting in a way that’s hard to describe.  It’s almost as if he’s stealing a bit of history.  Sure, he’s doing the same thing in the other books, but somehow having a fake Senator seems less serious a sin than having a fake person sleeping with John F. Kennedy.  Or maybe it’s just because it’s much more sensationalist and lazy than the other sins.  I’m not sure what it is, but it bugs me.

I’m glad the trilogy was over.  They were all decent enough reads,  but it’s hard to recommend them to anyone.  Really, if you’re at all interested in any of the times covered by the books, you’re probably better off getting recommendations on an actual history book instead of Follett’s historical fiction books.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

“Winter of the World” is book two of the “Century Trilogy” by Ken Follett.  Book two follows historical events from the rise of Nazism in 1933, through World War II, and ends in 1949 with the Soviet nuclear test and partitioning of East and West Germany.  Most of the cast of characters in book two will be familiar to readers of book one as they are almost exclusively the offspring of the characters from the first book.

Much of what I said about “Fall of Giants” applies equally to “Winter of the World”.  The historical fiction parts are quite interesting and offer rare glimpses of historical facts that were not covered in your history classes, albeit often with the ahistorical characters in the novel involved.  Follett also still has problems with writing romantic relationships, but they are much more tolerable in this book than they were in the first or I am just so used to his style that I don’t much recognize how bad it is anymore.

What makes this book so readable has much to do with the characters themselves.  Almost all are relatable.  They have recognizable flaws and believable character progressions.  Characters like Eric von Ulrich who falls so completely for Nazism only to be disillusioned by it after experiencing its brutality first hand during the war only to get completely swept up in Soviet Communism which followed much of the Nazi atrocity playbook in East Germany.

There is a disjointedness to this novel that wasn’t apparent in the first.  I think this has much to do with Follett having so much more historical material to work with as we get closer to present day and its better record keeping.  How do you choose what you want to cover and what you want to exclude?  For instance, I assume Follett covered Pearl Harbor for the sole reason that Americans wouldn’t read his book if he didn’t.  It and the cursory glances into the Pacific Theater seem so out of place with the rest of the book.  Other major events are excluded completely or only hinted at.

There is also a bit too much of the East Bad, West Good thing going on.  By no means are the U.S. and U.K. portrayed as angels, but German and Russian atrocities certainly take center stage.  How do you not even mention Japanese internment or the bombing of Dresden?  How do you mention the mass rape of German women by Russian soldiers while actively pointing out that the characters had never heard of American or British troops committing the same heinous acts even though it is fairly well documented that they did?  And how do you not mention the Holocaust even once?

Once again, we have a good book with flaws but is worth reading on balance.  Good characters, decent enough story, vibrant historical background.  The book has much to offer.  At 940 pages, it is a lot of book to get through, though.  If you don’t find that daunting and you’re willing to pick up the trilogy, I still think you will find your time not wasted.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

“Fall of Giants” is book one of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett.  You may know Ken Follett from such books as “Eye of the Needle” and “Pillars of the Earth”.  Both books were excellent.  Pieces of “Fall of Giants” live up to the glory of his former books, but pieces also fall dead flat.

The Good: This is an historical fiction novel and much of the history is fascinating.  For you “Downton Abbey” fans, this book takes place in roughly the same time period as portrayed in the series so far.  It starts a little before World War I and continues through to Hitler’s arrest in 1941.  The beginning of “Fall of Giants” is actually so “Downton Abbey”-ish that I wondered if one maybe copied off of the other, but each was released in 2010 so it looks like any similarities are purely coincidental.

Reading on how the world was inevitably dragged into World War I by a series of unfortunate events where at any point any party could have taken a step back and said “Whoah, what are we doing here?” and avoided the war makes for some great reading.  Follett accomplishes this feat by following various characters from the major players around.  The main characters are from England, Germany, Russia, and the United States.  The characters all have their own independent lives but have the fortunate habit of finding themselves crossing paths in the unlikeliest of scenarios.  Follett accomplishes this fairly seamlessly which is no small task.  This seemless, if statistically unlikely crossing of paths, unfortunately, is also the key to the books greatest downfall which leads us to…

The Bad: Ken Follett can not for the life of him make romance interesting.  You know that with such a vast array of characters, some of them are bound to pair off, but I wish Follett didn’t spend so much time on the couples getting together.  There was so much of it that I considered, for a brief period, not reading the next two books.  The sex scenes, of which there are many, are eye-gougingly bad.  What’s funny is that once the various couples get married, many of their stories got really interesting.

If you have a shaky grasp of the history surrounding World War I and the Russian Revolution, there is a lot this book has to offer you.  The story, romantic interludes aside, weaves a beautiful web of character development and intrigue with history as its backdrop.  This isn’t a great book and it certainly has its flaws, but on balance it is worth reading.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

I very quickly fell in love with “Walden” as I started to read it.  It has an allure to it that can suck you in.  Living on the outskirts of humanity, fending for yourself, answering to no one, it’s attractive.  Thoreau also peppers his accounts of his experiment in the woods with keen insights into humanity.  This makes him eminently quotable.  For instance: “Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education:  they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”  I think the reason why you don’t see his quotes more often is how verbose and descriptive he tends to be.  I chose that quote not because it is one of my favorites but because it is by far the shortest I had highlighted.  Quotes tend to be pithy.  Thoreau does not know the meaning of the word “pithy”.

I then very gradually fell out of love with “Walden”.  So much of the middle of the book is spent on simply describing Walden Pond and its environs, flora, fauna, visitors, oh, and what seemed like a billion pages on how deep Walden Pond is and talking about the ice that forms upon it.  Ugh.   I’ve never experienced such a reversal of my interest during my reading of a book before.

The final chapter picked back up the spirit of the first few chapters and things got interesting again as he delved into his politics.  Thoreau was a fascinating person.  Judging from his writing, if he were alive today, I think he’d be a Libertarian.  Much of what he has to say about people borders on condescending and much of what he has to say about politics smashes right through that border.

“Walden” is a slog to get through.  Whether it is worth it much depends on the reader.  If you often find yourself thinking about living a life of simplicity and solitude, there is much here for you.  If you enjoy the intricacies of the English language and teasing out meanings from complicated sentences, there is much here for you as well.  If you don’t find either of those appealing, you’d best look elsewhere for your entertainment.  I would recommend “Walden” to anyone and if they start out enjoying the first chapter, they should continue reading until they get bored and then just skip to the last chapter.  I am incapable of taking such advice, but others are not as completist as me either.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

This is one of those books that could really do with two different reviews.  One for its plot and one for its content.

The plot is kind of ridiculous and reads more like a bad role-playing game than a novel.  It finds itself jumping from location to location and having the characters get into various adventures at those locations.  If that was all “Against a Dark Background” had going for it, I would forever throw it into the literary trash heap and be done with it.  Luckily, the world that “Against a Dark Background” inhabits is rich and varied and complicated and imaginative and consistently surprising.

It is very hard to describe the world Banks has created in this book.  We have what appears to be a rogue sun, Thrial, with an orbiting planetary system, the main of which is Golter.  Golter can best be described as containing a pseudo-anarchic city-state system of government with a semi-autonomous world government that attempts to keep all-out anarchy at bay.  The plot revolves around the main character, Sharrow, and her attempts to flee an amorphous cult called the Huhsz which thinks that Sharrow needs to die in order for their prophesies to be fulfilled.  The world government, which is called the World Court, is totally ok with this and there is, in fact, a formal process that entities can submit themselves to in order to get these assassination passports.

Sharrow and her friends spend the entire book trying to stay a step ahead of the Huhsz, all the while searching for a weapon of immense power called a Lazy Gun which has been lost for generations and is best described as a weapon of mass destruction with a sense of humor.  Fire it at a man standing in the middle of a desert and it will create a deluge of water which will drown him.  Fire it at a city and a giant meteor will appear to wipe it out.  You get the idea.  The Huhsz have promised Sharrow that she can trade her life for the Lazy Gun if she can find it before they find her.

What makes the book worth while is everything Sharrow and her friends come across in their adventures.  There is a jewel heist in a city called the Log Jam which consists of a series of boats tied together and stretching kilometers across.  There is a book theft in a city ruled by a king that forswears all technology and learning of any kind.  There is a cult that lives in a place called the Sea House and whose members must walk around forever chained to the wall which contains an interlocking system of grooves that allow them to slide their chains from room to room.  There is a city full of androids that is too radioactive for humans to live in full-time.  There are Solipsists who spend their time explaining away everything they see around themselves as projections of their own godhood.  And more.

And that’s the saving grace of this book.  There is so much imagination just packed into the pages.  Much of it doesn’t seem to go together and a lot even seems contradictory but it is all quite enjoyable if you ignore these faults.  I see “Against a Dark Background” as more of an adult children’s book.  It doesn’t make much sense, but it allows your imagination to run wild.