Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant (February/06)

While browsing my local bookstore one day, I came across this novel. I would like to say that I bought it to broaden my artist mind and that I knew completely what I was buying myself into, but that would be false. In truth, I bought the book because I really liked the title. I suppose my mind was thinking of all the meanings behind the title, the university student coming out in me.

In this novel, Sarah Dunant tells the story of Alessandra Cecchi. I was very happy to learn, after I impulsively bought this book, that it told the story of a female living in Florentine. I enjoy reading novels about women from history, and not just the famous ones, the regular ones, or in this case fictional, are interesting to learn more about as well because it gives an interesting perspective to the historical periods. I personally enjoyed Alessandra because she was not like the rest of the women of her time, and that was enjoyable to me because I like novels that show strong women. She spoke her mind and did not let anyone tell her what was going to happen, she tended to tell them.

In the novel Alessandra is an aspiring painter, something that was unheard of for her time being that she was a woman and it was only the 15^th to early 16^th century in this novel. Women were expected to be good wives and mothers, they were not expected to have likes and dislikes outside of that. It was an especially rocky time religion-wise, as a man by the name of Savonarola has taken power following the death of the cities old leader, and he believed he had a direct link to God. With him in power, peaceful Florentine goes from pristine to a city of hellfire. Savonarola believes that many things are against Gods plan and preaches his sermons so well that many people leave thinking that God actually did tell them to do things this way. He makes rules for the city to follow and turns the city of grandeur to almost a ghost town because most activities were restricted and women’s rights were further constrained. He has a town eating out of his hand until the pope gets wind of it. It is interesting to see how the holy pope took care of the situation.

Alessandra, meanwhile, finds herself married to a man that is not at all what she expected. He has a rather large secret, but he lets her lead the life that she wishes and encourages her to think and paint. She also learns secrets about her past and her family that cause for some interesting scenes to enfold in the novel. Then, there is her painter. The back of the book points this out as one of the most important encounters in the novel, and while I admit it is important, I think a lot more is going on in the novel than just her infatuation with his art. He is a quiet man from another country who comes to her house in order to paint the family chapel. Through him, Alessandra learns about art and many other things that haunt will her throughout the novel, but she is truly the only person that cares enough to make sure that he is okay; the rest of the household appears to have better things to occupy their time with. You really see the artist flourish as the novel progresses, but a lot of mystery surrounds him that often leaves you wondering just who he really is and if he is an actual famous painting worked into the narrative or just a regular man. He is not forthcoming with his name.

Birth of Venus may start slowly, but as it progressed, I found myself drawn into the novel and wondering what was going to happen next. Not to mention my not being able to put it down issues. I warn, though, I found the beginning painful, so be prepared for that. I also do not suggest reading the last 200 pages in the middle of the night, if you reach that point it is better to put the book down until a more suitable hour of the day. I think the end justifies the slow start, though, and while I would not call this the best book I have ever read, it was definitely worthwhile. I think that anyone that likes either historical fiction, art, or just a good story will find what they are looking for in the tale of Alessandra and her Italian family set during a rocky period in history.

4/5

Uncommon Women and Others - Wendy Wasserstein (January/06)

It is with great saddness that I start this post with a note that Wendy Wasserstein passed away from cancer a couple weeks ago. :(

This is a play, for those that are unfamiliar with the title, I have been reading a few plays here and there to broaden my horizons. This play came out in 1977 originally. The author, Wasserstein, wrote this play while a student at the Yale School of Drama. It is a portrait of the aspirations of 8 undergraduate woman at Mount Holyoke College in the early 1970s. The girls have come together in 1978 to look back on their college years together. Not all the girls are present, some of them are off having advenutures, but the majority of the central characters are there. Six to be exact. Most of the action in the play takes place in the past. It takes place during a period in time where women were battling for their rights in the US. The point of this play seems to be women thinking that they are "uncommon" and planing how their future is going to be. It was a time when women were forced to repress their creativity, their identity all to fit in. In 1978, the women have grown into successful but troubled adults, still living out the desire for freedom and self-determination that was instilled in them and thwarted by their "uncommon" education.

The play may not seem shocking to people today, but when it was performed it was quite unheard of. One of the teachers of the girls school is a lesbian, and she goes on about being a proper girl while she is breaking the rules of properness, in a manner of speaking. This play was actually the first of a trilogy on the feminist movement, I plan to read the later plays in the future.

In the play, there is Kate who is studying to be a lawyer. In the future meeting she is the only girl that has a job that was not "common" to women. Rita refuses to live in the present, she sees things only in means of the future. The other girls are generally just women who are educated but intimiated by what that means, even after they are in their future. The point of this play, to me, was that it is hard to be an "uncommon" woman because men are intimitated by a woman that is more successful than them. Kate, out of the girls at the restaurant, seems to be the only one that remained "uncommon".

Even though a play is meant to be acted, it was a good read.

3.5/5

The Giver - Lois Lowry (January/06)

Following Harry Potter I read another novel intended for a younger audience, but I did not find this book young. It is one of those books that will mean different things to the different ages that read it, in my opinion. The older readers will see something that the younger reader missed.

This novel is quite simply about a utopian society. Not that utopia is a simple concept, to many it is actually believed to be an impossible concept. This is a world where everyone is told what their point to the society is and what they should do to fit in to the grand scheme of things. A group of Elders watch the children and decide what jobs they should have, food is made by a group of people for the whole community, you receive certain things when you reach particular ages, and so on. It is an entirely planned society, and appears perfect in every way. You are given the job that best suits you, your mate is chosen to make up for your weaknesses while your strengths make up for theirs, and you have to wait and be selected to have a child because even that is done by a group of people for the masses. Marriage in this community is not a coming together of loved ones, it is a partnership.

The main character in the novel, Jonah, is t the age where he is chosen to receive his job placement and for the first part of the book is very anxious to learn what that position is. When the time comes that he is awarded his position, it comes with it a lot of new avenues to be explored. For starters, what may look like a perfect society from the outside is not as perfect from the inside. He also learns that not too long ago, the people that lived in this community were not run as perfectly as they are now. They used to have free-will. With this knowledge comes the adventure of the novel, which I will leave for the readers.

4/5

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J.K. Rowling (January/06)

This is my second attempt with the Harry Potter series. I had read this book when it first came out all those years ago, and the never tried again until now. I find the story very childish, as it is meant to be, and did not like it. Two people told me that the fourth book is the best, so I think before I insult all the Harry Potter fans in the world, I will just leave my post as this, read the fourth book in the future, and then come back if my perspective has changed.

Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom (January/06)

This had been in my plans to read for a while, as I read The Five People You Meet in Heaven over the summer. I did not rush out and buy it, though, because I did not seem to get what I was meant to get out of the first novel I read by him, so I decided to wait for inspiration to strike. Inspiration did not strike until it came out in paperback and was at Wal-Mart for 25 percent off. So, I picked it up then and stuck in it the bag I take with me to work. I had no idea when I was going to read it, it was just there for an emergency. And, emergency struck when I was at my boyfriends one day and luckily I had this book with me.

It is quite a touching tale about a man that is dying and meets with his favourite student every Tuesday until he dies. They talk about all the important things in life, as Morrie seems to be a fountain of information. He had lived a while and gone through many of his own life experiences, so it was a very frank conversation from a man at the end of his life. He did not seem particularly caught up in the particulars of the end, he was more interested in making the most of the life he had left. He taught school his whole life, and he still attempted to until he was unable to no more. It did not matter if he could walk or move like a regular man because the words that he touched many with were worth the highest price.

He had a way with the people that he met, they never forgot him even if they were only around him for a short time. He lived his life with dignity and that is how the people around him treated him back. It was a great loss to many when he died, and all he was in the grand scheme of things was a professor. He was just much more to the people that came across him, and his words will live on in Albom's book.

The best thing I can say to you is if you want to gain a new perspective on life, read this book. If it does not touch you, it is the wrong time, and you should not give up but try again in the future. This book is one of those books that with its quaint words will move mountains and help people when they need it most.

4.5/5

The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde (January/06)

This is a mystery series by Jasper Fforde, and I am not a person that reads many mysteries because they do not generally appeal to me. This series does, though. I had first heard of it on a message board that I visit and then promptly pushed to the back of my mind. I actually saw this novel twice at a second hand store before my mind registered where I had heard the title before and picked it up. It was amazing to me, also, because it is the first book in the series and me and second hand store history states that I am meant to find the third or fifth book, never the first. But, this time I was in luck and decided to give the mystery a try.

It is not your general run-of-the-mill mystery story because it is a literary mystery. The main character, Thursday Next, works for a section of the justice department that is concerned with literature. Most of the time they just check novels to see if they are forgaries, but once in a while something big comes across their table. This happens to Thursday when a professor of hers turns out to be involved in a big literary case and she is pulled into the middle of it.

Her uncle has made a machine that will allow people to go inside of books and interact with the characters, and the "bad guy" gets ahold of it. He has been stealing ancient manuscripts, another thing that it is the literary teams job to protect, and one of those manuscripts is the famous Jane Eyre. Imagine the excitement when he actually goes into the novel and takes out the main character. Literary freaks go crazy because the story is told entirely from Jane's point of view, so without her there is no story.

This adventure sends Thursday on a lot of missions. Firstly, she finds herself moving back to her hometown, a town that she had turned her back on because of all the bad memories it held for her. There she finds herself working for a man that is more concerned with his budget than solving a case and the true leaders of the world, a section of the "government" that controls them all. A lot of things happen in this novel, both with a character from Jane Eyre being able to come easily to her rescue from outside the pages of a book, a time travelling dad, and a period of time spent in the pages of one of the most famous novels of all time. It is extremely wonderful reading, even if you are not the type that likes mysteries, this book has things in it for everyone.

4.5/5

Tales from Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin (January/06)

January had a few bad books in it, and this was another one. I had to read it for school, which was fine, but the professor chose a book in the middle of the Earthsea series and it really did not make much sense to the members of the class that had not read any of the books before. Boring was an understatement, people actually fell asleep attempting the pages of the book. It is laughable because there was a comment in the critique page where a reviewer said something along the lines that if you had not read the series before, this would be a good introduction. Wrong!

There were so many things wrong with this book, but I will give Ursuala the credit that it would likely be better for the reader if they had read the rest of the books before reading this one. It is broken up into a novella called "The Finder" and a few short stories. From what I gather, in the Earthsea series the women are under the men, and one of the purposes of this story was to explain how they got to be that way. It was the fault of the main character of the story, Otter. He had special powers and in his town those with special powers were allowed only to work for the king, so his family tried to hide his gifts from the rest of the town. It did not work and Otter was eventually taken into the Kings service. With the help of a young woman on her last legs, though, his captivity did not last long before he was off having his adventures. He had been bid by the women of the young women's town to find an island where the magical folks lived that was run by women. Otter spent years looking for this island.

When he found it, yes it was ran by women, but that did not withstand the arrival of Otter. It was not long before he was making the decisions for the good of the community and the women were slowly being pushed to the sidelines. I am not even sure if the women knew it was happening, but by the later books in the Earthsea series, men ruled the world. Which is sad. It was a dull explanation, but I find myself one day planning to read the rest of the books in the series to see if this novel would be better to me if I had. It is on my to-do list I suppose.

Overall, though, a terrible book that I would not recommend to anyone unless you plan to read the rest of the series. My rating may change if I ever do that.

2/5

Good for a nap, though!

The Princess Bride - William Goldman (January/06)

This is one of my favourite fantasy novels of all times. I had read it a few years ago, but it came up again in one of my university classes this semester so I found myself diving into it again. It is a hard book to talk about because the point of the story is to not know anything but what you learn through the pages, and since I know a few people do check my journal from time to time, I don't want to ruin the book for them.

So, brief synopsis: This is an adventure story. The main female character is Buttercup is believed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. She lives a small existence on a farm where she meets Westley, the hero of the tale and falls in love with him. He is handsome and throughout the novel you will see instances where he risks death and much worse for the woman that he loves. There is a prince, Humperdinck, who collects beautiful things and he intends for Buttercup to be one of them. (This was made into a movie, I can imagine it would have been difficult to cast Buttercup because who can really say who the most beautiful actress in the world is...) He is also very addicted to battle, he likes a challenge, but of course he is a conceited Prince and intends to always win whatever he desires.

The novel also has two allies to the valiant Westley. It is hard to explain just how they come to his aid, as in one point of the novel they kidnap Buttercup, but they do nonetheless. They are Inigo, a character that is memorable to me, who is a Spanish swordsman who lives only to avenge the death of his father. I have to say it, but of course his adventures lead him to the man that killed his father, what adventure story would it be if there was not a clear path once in a while. And then there is Fezzik, a gentle giant with the capability to uproot a tree. They make an interesting pair, and I would normally reward them the position of comedical relief, but the whole story is funny and the narrator interrupts quite often to offer his point of view on the story as a whole. It can be annoying, but he puts it in different font so that you can skip over it if the need takes you.

There is also Vizzini, who is an evil man with a mind so keen he's foiled by his own perfect logic. (Funny scene). Count Rugen works for the Prince and all I can say is the guy is crazy, but then I did say that the Prince likes battle. That takes in death as well, and the Count is perfecting the death part because he loves to watch people suffer. One of my favourite characters in the book is Miracle Max because he can sort of raise the dead, and he is just a simply laughable character to me.

Did I give too much away? It is hard to say, because everything is supposed to be a mystery, but I am sure even if you know one thing there are many other twists and turns to explore. I highly recommend this novel.

4.5/5

Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller (January/06)

This is the famous American play written by Arthur Miller, who, as a pointless fact, was at one time married to Marilyn Munroe. It is not a long play, but in its short pages it covers many important issues about the world at large.

In the play we have Willy Loman who is the wornout, dreaming salesman that is the central character to the play. Then, as a sort of comparison, we have his two sons: Biff who is the all-American star but yet can't fit into American society and Happy who ironically is the unhappy younger brother.

All the action in the play is centred on one specific moment: Willy is approaching the end of his career, his glad-handing sale contacts are all dead or retired and he no longer is pulling in business for the company. He is quite honestly, about to be fired. The play has a lot going on because not only does it take place in the present, but it also blends scenes from the past when Willy is a young father, when he has a woman in Boston, and when Biff finds out that his father is not the man he thought he was.

This play was written to contradict the American dream. Willy was well-liked and worked hard, but even at the end he had hardly anything to show for it; which is not what the American dream was expected to do. In this play we find out what started Willy in his career and the bumps in the road all through his life. His wife is often the voice of reason, but as was typical of the time, no one ever seemed to listen to her. It is a play about the downward spiral of an ordinary man and you can not help but feel sorry for him.

Plays are hard to rate because they are not meant to be read, they are meant to be performed. So, let's say 4/5.

Rare Birds - Edward Riche (January/06)

This is me attempting to catch up on my journal. Going to take me a while.

Rare Birds was a novel I had to read for my Atlantic Canadian Literature course in university. I had heard of this book before and had always associated it with an older piece of literature. I was wrong, it came out in the 90's. I am not sure if it was the teacher that gave me the wrong impression or the title. So, once I got over my incorrect impression of the novel, I looked forward to seeing what it was actually like.

It takes place in Newfoundland, a province in Canada, with most of the action taking place at the restaurant that the main character, Dave Purcell, owns. For those of you that do now know Newfoundland very well, it is a small place that is mainly associated with fishing as one of the fishing banks is located off its coast. So, there are restaurants, but Dave picked this out of the way place and put a fancy restaurant there. It did not exactly take off.

When he thinks that his world is about to come crashing down, though, his friend Alphonse Murphy not only helps him safe his failing restaurant but gives the reader a character to have a good laugh about. He has the most hilarious schemes concocted. If Dave's odd personality does not draw you in, you could read the book for Alphonse only and still be entertained.

Dave is going through more than the loss of his restaurant, his wife took a high power job in the US and he hardly sees her or talks to her, he believes that divorce is in his future. His loneliness and insecurities are the humour of the book in many ways and he gets himself into some situations that are both hilarious and eyebrow-raising. A great comical piece of literature that also makes fun of the tourists and other venues that Newfoundland has to offer to its people.

I also met the author of this book and now my copy is a signed copy. :)

I give this book a 3.5/5.