A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

I would just like to say that what I wanted to write for this blog was ??? and call it a day. That is how I felt about this book. It took me two weeks to read 196 pages... and if you know me, I never take that long to read when I have the time. I read a book in between (Museum of the Missing) because I needed to clear my head of what I was reading. With that, I will try to give you some sort of review of this novel.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce apparently "represents the transitional stage between the realism of Joyce's Dubliners and the symbolism of Ulysses, and is essential to the understanding of the later work" (from the back of the book) and apparently the main character, Stephen Dedalus shows up in Ulysses, another book that's on the list, which I have no desire to read anytime soon. The book starts with "Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy name baby tuckoo..." (Joyce, pg. 4). I should have known where this book was going. This book is suppose to be about self discovery, figuring out what is important and trying to find your place in the world. However, for me, the stream of consciousness technique coupled with the jumping of years, was very hard to keep up with it.
This stream of consciousness was more of moments of reflection, where Stephen reaches his epiphany... questioning his family, religion, faith and education. There were some parts of the novel that I found myself enjoying, but those were short lived. There was one chapter (and mind you, there are only five) which was a sermon, telling those who have committed sin to repent, or face damnation in hell. That chapter was one of the most arduous for me to read. I do not have a Catholic upbringing, nor am I very religious, so it pained me.
I don't really have much more to say on this book that would be of any intellectual value. I am sure Joyce would think of me as Lady Gaga would think of those who don't get her "art", that I don't know what good literature is. To him I say "whatever, I hated your book".
If you too want to read a book that is suppose to be about self discovery with a disjointed timeline, this book is for you!
I gave this book three out of five stars because the parts that were good, were GOOD.

Currently reading a short story, Marquis de Sade's Betrayal. My first Sade book. He has two on the list, but this one is not. I just ordered three more books, but I need a 1001 book to read next. Should I start The Forsyte Saga? The Three Musketeers? The Portrait of a Lady? I need some input!

Until next time,

happy reading!

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

I can't believe as the summer is winding down that I am 1) writing another post in a week and 2) read two books so far this week. This post is going to be short and sweet because this collection of short stories that I read is not on the 1001 list. However, two other of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books are: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles. I have read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes but not yet The Hound of the Baskervilles. I own two books that contain the complete stories and novels of Sherlock Holmes and I am going through it in order. I am super anal when it comes to reading series, You should've seen my reaction when I read Nineteen Seventy Seven and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, both belonging to series. I freaked. Now because of that, I have one more short story collection to read before I can start volume II, to which I can read The Hound of the Baskervilles. The only thing that I knew about Sherlock Holmes while I was growing up was from the PBS series, Wishbone, when Wishbone presented The Hound of the Baskervilles. I always knew the characters of Holmes and Watson, and the many adaptations from The Great Mouse Detective to the Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law characters to my personal favorite, the BBC mini series of Sherlock. If you haven't seen Sherlock yet, drop everything you're doing, no but seriously, stop taking care of your kids, don't go to work, pull to the side of the road and binge watch this series on Netflix. NOW! Well, after you finish reading this post...

However, I am getting way off topic. Back to the matter at hand. What I am trying to say is, for someone who doesn't read a ton of Sherlock Holmes, I feel like I know a lot of these stories because of the many adaptations. In The Memoirs, *spoiler alert* (not really, because EVERYONE KNOWS THIS), the final short story, entitled, The Final Case, is where Professor Moriarty and Sherlock both kill themselves, or where Watson deduces, Sherlock rids Moriarty by killing himself in the process of killing Moriarty by throwing themselves over the Reinbach Falls. However, don't be sad, while this is one of my favorite of the short stories in this collection, since this is where we meet Moriarty, Sherlock doesn't die. The next collection of short stories is called The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock LIVES. Now we can all go on with our lives.

Now that I got the ending out of the way for you, what I like about this collection is that we see a softer side of Holmes. We see where he is not always right. We meet his brother Mycroft (whom I love) and we see more emotion from Holmes. Unfortunately, you also can read Doyle's boredom with his character. Some of the short stories are very formulaic, with 10 pages of the problem being presented to Holmes and the other ten pages consist of him telling them how the mystery is solved. Then, Doyle was basically forced to write more Holmes stories and novels after this. But like I said, there are some good cases in here none of the less. This is a great, easy read. However, to my great annoyance, I have been watching the Poirot series on Netflix, and I have read almost 2/3 of Agatha Christie's Poirot mysteries, SO, in my head, when Sherlock was talking, I kept giving him the voice of David Suchet's Poirot, which annoyed me to no end. Damn you, Agatha Christie, for being heavily (and I mean HEAVILY) influenced by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. DAMN YOU!

I give this 4 out of 5 stars because it's a super easy and fun read.

Now, the next book I am reading, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce is going to, literally, be the death of me. I have been avoiding James Joyce like the plague. Mostly because I don't get his writing style. It makes absolutely no sense. If I survive, I'll be sure to let you guys know, in what is sure to be the BEST review EVER!

Until next time... (if I live)
Happy Reading

The Jungle

When most people think of The Jungle, they first say "oh, isn't that the book about the meat packing industry?" And that is if they know the book at all. While the first third of the book is a graphic look of the meat packing district as it was in the turn of the 20th century, the book deals with more issues than just the poor working conditions and severe health code violations that were rampant in the business.

On it's surface, the novel is about Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who comes over with his fiancé, her step-mother, cousin and numerous half brothers and sisters. It chronicles their life, struggling to survive, keeping jobs, falling prey to con man and other issues that continue to arise. However, the family saga is just a back drop to the main story of real life corruption, poor working conditions, the plight of the immigrant families and the lack of safety nets. The author, Upton Sinclair, was in real life a Socialist, who went undercover for a Socialist newspaper in Chicago and actually worked in a meat packing factory for seven weeks to write this novel. It was a serialized piece, and didn't appear in novel form until later. Sinclair uses this story of the poor immigrant family to expose what was happening in these industries that the American public had no idea what was happening or how their meat was brought to the table. 

The opening of the novel begins with Jurgis and Ona's wedding feast. The wedding feast, back in the old country, is supposed to be a time for celebration. However, in this new American life, it is a constant source of worry and stress for our protagonist family. The wedding feast is an expensive one, but it is a tradition that Jurgis and Ona's step mother, Elzbieta, refuses to abandon. If they abandoned it "to do that would, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going"(pg. 7). Everyone attending the feast is poor, and everyone is expected to pay for themselves. This is called the veselija. A hat is passed around and the guests throw in what they can. Jurgis and Ona are depending on this money to pay the vendors and on a surplus to get them through. However, when they have passed the collections, they find there is not even enough money to cover the wedding costs. It is observed that people come in from the street where the eat and drink and leave before leaving any money. Elzbieta says it will ruin them, but typical Jurgis says "I will work harder".
Jurgis always says that he will "work harder" every time that a financial hardship arises. Unfortunately, Jurgis hasn't figured out that the system is working against him,  his family, and all of the workers. There is no social safety net, health benefits, or vacation time given. If you missed a day of work, not only were you unpaid, but you were at risk of losing your job. There were so many unemployed, that even if you were a good, hard worker, the company would not hesitate to find someone to replace you. They need bodies and if someone could perform the work marginally well, you were out of job. Now, if the boss liked you enough and disliked your replacement enough, you may be lucky enough to get your job back, at the expense of the person who replaced you. This was a vicious cycle, but everyone in the packing industry abided by it. You did not want to be the unlucky soul who got sick, hurt themselves on the production lines, or even worse, get black listed.
As you might have imagined, all of these happen to our immigrant family. As I have previously stated, Sinclair uses this family to rail against the work conditions, lack of the social safety net and lack of morals among the industry. Sinclair throws everything against this family. Could they really be that unlucky? This is where I think the story fails. If Sinclair wanted to write this investigative piece, he could have done that either using real names and people or actually make us care about these characters. Throughout the evolution of this "novel" (a term that I use loosely), my disdain for Jurgis grows. As much as I want to feel for him and his family, Sinclair makes me turn against them because to get more of the investigational journalism into the story, he makes these improbable events happen to Jurgis all the time. Then, to top it all off, he decides that Jurgis sees the light and socialism is the answer. He leaves a bunch of story lines open. I had a hard time concentrating at the end because it became less about the family and more about the savior that is the Socialist movement.
Overall, I think the novel is worth a read because it is an eye opener about what was really going on with our food and these immigrant workers. It shows the rise of the union and why they were such an important part of the labor movement. I just think that Sinclair's passion for Socialism and the need to expose every part of the industry and political corruption in one book to one family really muddles the novel. I give it three out of five stars.

Another book has been checked off the 1001 list. I am currently over 100 books from about 1290ish, so I have plenty of reading to do. My next book is The Nanny Diaries for my book club, which I am already half way done with so I am going to need to find my next 1001 book. I have the Forsyte Saga, but I am not sure if I want to tackle a long read this late in the year when I still have another 13 books to read towards my goal of 35 books read in 2014. I have so much going on and so little time. Any suggestions for my next read would be awesome! Just refer to the 1001 list and tell me what you think I should pick up next. If you say Charles Dickens, go home.

I am so glad to be writing in my blog again. I will definitely keep it up this time around (I did say this before). I promise!

Until next time,
Happy Reading