J. K. Rowling

Yesterday I picked up from the library's sale shelf a copy of a random book: J.K. Rowling: The Wizard Behind Harry Potter. I'm afraid it's not "literary sojourner" material; it's a silly book intended for grade schoolers. However, it answered a question I had: how did the first Harry Potter book surge into our literary landscape so quickly and with such intensity? Having worked in the publishing industry, I knew that there was some serious marketing involved. But why? What moved the publishers to propel an anywoman's story to the top, granting an ordinary person such fame and fortune??

My first encounter with Harry Potter was in the fall of 1998 when living in Manhattan, a girlfriend sent me her copy of Sorcerer's Stone. I was not impressed. Having read many fantastic stories as a child, I could not see anything novel about this one. I couldn't make it through more than two chapters. It was OK, but not particularly captivating to me. I mean, what about Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time? Brillliant. I passed the book to a younger cousin.

The answer to my question is this: when the book was offered to the American market, the publication rights were auctioned, and unheard of figure of $100, 000 was the winning bid. Because so much money had been pinned to the project, understandably the publisher did everything in his power to make the book successful. It was already a great success in the U.K., and it came to be the same in the U.S. the buzz just grew, paving the way for future books.

After a failed marriage in Portugal, Rowling returned to the U.K. with a baby to care for and spent a year on public welfare while she finished up the first Potter book and obtained an agent to represent her. Her gamble paid off: an agent agreed to field (? what's the right word?) her manuscript, and much later it was accepted by a small publisher.

I still haven't read any of the Potter books and don't know if I ever will. My husband has found them entertaining and says they get better as the series progresses. Apparently Rowling wrote the first two and was then commissioned to write a total of seven books. It was at that point that she planned out what would happen in each.

J.K. Rowling as an individual seems to be still quite ordinary, except that she is now very well-known and rich. I was interested to learn how she went from nobody to superstar. (Forbes named her the first to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books). Now, she is selling handwritten stories for millions of dollars...

el otonyo del patriarca

even in the midst of a book purging (i finally let go of "the land and people of algeria"), it is not possible to get rid of copies of faulkner or garcia marquez no matter how hard to read they can be or how unlikely it is you will ever read them.

i defied fate and read. if each GM novel matched up to an F novel, this would represent the counterpart to "the sound and the fury" not because of any common theme but because of style. two obvious points to the reader of both: the use of stream of consciousness throughout (each chapter consisted of ~ 3 sentences with not a paragraph break in the entirety) and the use of arbitrarily shifting narrators. each time the story begins to be told from the first person, i (the reader) would think "ah ha!- now i understand who is narrating" only for the book to shift back to a half-conscious third person ramble of thoughts, some of which would repeat from time to time.

i am here

I want to start out by saying that I am currently reading Neil Gaimon's "Smoke and Mirrors" a collection of short stories and "Radical Brewing" by Randy Mosher.

You're Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!

by Mark Twain

With an affinity for floating down the river, you see things in black
and white. The world is strange and new to you and the more you learn about it, the less
it makes sense. You probably speak with an accent and others have a hard time
understanding you and an even harder time taking you seriously. Nevertheless, your
adventurous spirit is admirable. You really like straw hats.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I just took this quiz. Interestingly enough I just completed re-reading this book about 3 weeks ago.


PS: after reading this article (slate.com) I got down for a while but then i learned to "love the bomb"
PPs: cobalt is such a lovely color.

I was surprised by this. Given these results, I'm interested to know what book Huitzi is.

You're One Hundred Years of Solitude!

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Lonely and struggling, you've been around for a very long time.
Conflict has filled most of your life and torn apart nearly everyone you know. Yet there
is something majestic and even epic about your presence in the world. You love life all
the more for having seen its decimation. After all, it takes a village.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

what book am i?

this being a literary blog of sorts, i decided to take this quiz. here are the results, and while i agree that i'm not the societal norm, i don't think i'm a sexual deviant because that is just weird. though i did wear shoes like the one on the book cover in elementary school.

and maybe the other people who participate in this blog could see what book they are. that could be interesting.

You're Lolita!

by Vladimir Nabokov

Considered by most to be depraved and immoral, you are obsessed with
sex. What really tantalizes you is that which deviates from societal standards in every
way, though you admit that this probably isn't the best and you're not sure what causes
this desire. Nonetheless, you've done some pretty nefarious things in your life, and
probably gotten caught for them. The names have been changed, but the problems are real.
Please stay away from children.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

angels and demons

dan brown

i finished reading this book in 2 sittings: the first being 1 hour long, and then the second when i was at work just setting around. it's a quick read, and a nice mystery novel. it's the prequel (sort of) to the da vinci code, which sparked all that unnecessary controversy. (people, it's FICTION!)

the protagonist of the book is a religious icon professor with weird character tics and is helplessly drawn into a crazy murder/revenge plot to overthrow the vatican. it also involved some crazy physics and science theories. since i find christian religious history to be quite fascinating, and also mysteries to be fascinating, and also also science fascinating, it was easy to follow along and also try to think of what would happen next. there were moments of "oh my gosh this is so cheesy" but then again, it's a nice book to read if you wanted to get "used to" the idea of studying more of that kind of history. (for example, after i read da vinci code, i read some books about the holy grail and the knights of the templar.)

conclusion: this book is probably not worth buying, but you should definitely check it out of the library for a plane ride or something. it's a quick read and time really did fly by. and at the end of the book, i had a "wow" moment. and that was good.

anna karenina, tolstoy

maybe i picked this novel up thinking that if tolstoy were as good a writer as dostoievski, i should not be ignorant of that. or maybe i just wanted to flex the old biceps.

dont read this book unless you are really bored. i got to page 500 then found a synopsis on the internet and so i didnt feel like i had to read the remaining 400 pages.

tolstoy's style did remind me of dostoievski except that dostoievski's stuff actually has really great content to it. i wont ever doubt dostoievski again.

omnivore's dilemma, part 1

michael pollan

all i can say is "wow". i finished this book this morning, and it took me approximately 3-4 weeks to read. i can certainly say that i've learned so much about food and what goes into food that when i was done, i felt sad because i just wanted to read more and more. with all that said, let me do a brief synopsis...

the book is divided into three parts illustrating pollan's quest for the "perfect meal", or at least tracking how food ends up on his plate. the first part talks about the commercial food industry, how corn shows up in everything that we eat that is pre-processed (corn is cheap and full of calories), and how cattle are raised in CAFOs. the second part talks about organic food and how it's not as organic as one would like to imagine, and compares it to local farming, and how local farming pretty much trumps everything else in the quest for "good food". lastly, he talks about hunting and gathering his own food, which in my opinion he feels has been the most perfect meal to date.

once i have more time, i will write my opinions on the book and how it's made a big impact in my food life. i'll just let you know...i check ALL labels for traces of corn now...!

curious incident of the dog in the night time, 2

an author's main aim in writing a story from the first person perspective is for the reader to identify with the protagonist. at least for this book.

besides recognizing many of the traits (which the reader associates with autism but, as another poster noted, are actually based on non-autistic persons' quirks) exhibited by christopher in myself, i also came to view truth (the result of applying logic to situations) in his almost mathematical-proof-proving method.

the use of dramatic irony in "curious incident" versus "animal farm" is noteworthy, i believe. in both novels, the reader knows more than the characters and is pained to see them not be able to explain their actions logically as christopher demanded or to forgot rules and their reasons so fast that they are easily misled by napoleon. i think this effect in both books makes them not only entertaining page-turners but also inducers of logical thought and action in the reader's life.

and what more can you want?

Animal Farm, Take 4

You all inspired me to read ANIMAL FARM again. The first time was when I was about 8 or 9, I found it on my dad's bookshelf - Hey! A book about animals who take over a farm! and it was simply an enjoyable story with something of a dark side.
In 9th grade we read it in school, but with an ignoramus for a teacher the first nine weeks, all I remember is his misspelling terms related to the book and getting things thrown at him when he turned to write them on the board. He was not teacher material and was soon replaced (taken away by the dogs, ha). Actually if I were him I would have quit which is possibly what happened.
Back on track: I read it again this afternoon. I cant get past reading it as a critique of Stalinist Russia in the manner in which Orwell intended it. But in that way it is informative. It is a detailed allegory arising from Orwell's convictions developed though his personal experiences of fighting in the Spanish Civil War and working as a propagandist for the BBC's Indian and East Asian arm.
Sidenotes (perhaps I cant get back on track after all): did you know that Orwell was born in Bengal, India? And his father worked there for the opium department of the Civil Service? What exactly does that entail? Did you also know that in 1954 Animal Farm was made into an animated feature film, a project funded and overseen by the CIA? THAT sounds interesting.

So Ive been thinking about what I can say about this book. It's a great allegory, both in the specific way in which the author intended it, but also in the way that alex and huitzi related it to our times. I can distinctly remember when the Bush machine started the spin on how 9-11 should be pinned on Saddam Hussein - I was in the apartment on First Avenue - pardon my French, but I couldnt fucking believe it. It would never fly, I thought. But it did ...and it went on and led to war. Donald Rumsfeld was like Squealer, wouldnt you say? Turning words around, etc. I had friends who participated in protests and marches but for nothing. That war still goes on. No good can come of it. It's like an evil scheme laid by Napoleon.

We've been watching old episodes of Da Ali G show here, and the performer Sasha Baron Cohen points out that "it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic."

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I remember when this book came out (back in 2003) because I heard it reviewed on NPR. It stuck in my memory then. I am glad to have now had a chance to read it.

According to one reviewer of the book on Amazon.com who is autistic, the author does a good job portraying life through the experience of an autistic person. However, wikipedia notes that some with Asperger's disagree with the depiction. Asperger's is a mild form of autism. Haddon once worked with autistic individuals, but claimed to have drawn most of the main character's quirks from "normal" people he knew.

I like books in which I can learn something while being entertained by the story. This was one of them, and on different levels. Big picture: a view into autism (Asperger's) . Zoom in: the protagonist Christopher, who is enthralled with maths and science (especially astronomy), is continually providing the reader with explanations of natural events and logic problems. Here is a simple example:

"I went out to the balcony to find out whether I could see any stars, but there weren't any because of all the clouds and what is called light pollution, which is light from streetlights and car headlights and floodlights and lights in buildings reflecting off tiny particles in the atmosphere and getting in the way of light from the stars."

They get much more complicated and in depth. I just had to accept some of the math problems on faith. (Ha!)

This debut novel by Mark Haddon was well done and I would be interested in finding out if his subsequent work A Spot of Bother is equally charming.

I recommend this book as an entertaining and quick read (I finished it in two sittings). Thanks for the inspiration, frylime!


Here is a link to sources of free/in the public domain books online:
http://www.booksforabuck.com/general/pubsources.html

Animal Farm, 3

I read Animal Farm a couple of moths ago, and I felt that my opinion was overdue, but I hadn’t had the time to write it down and it wasn’t until the past week that I spent long hours in airports when I had just the much needed time…

......

Though Animal Farm is George's Orwell criticism of the abuse of power and use of patriotism-propaganda committed in Russia during the early years of the revolution in name of “egalitarianism”, the tale depicted in Orwell’s book is still much relevant.

Orwell makes an excellent job identifying actions that could make a well intended idea go wrong: The use of subjective numbers and figures, personification of the physical space, change of the law to legalize actions previously considered illegal, the use of an external (usually subjective) enemy, cuts that directly affect the well being of citizens (education, health) in order to increase military expenditures, etc. These actions have seen not only in Russia but they are still happening and now more close to home.

I believe Animal Farm’s open ending is Orwell’s way to tell us that, its citizens’ responsibility to keep checks and balances on power and that the official story is not enough. It doesn’t matter if the tag line of the policy is "spread democracy", "fight the imperio", "keep our nuclear deterrent", "4 good 2 bad"...... Democracy is only possible when there is a real commitment from their participants.