What Happens Between the Books I'm Reading?

After writing my first two blog posts, which happened to be on the same day, I realized that won't always happen. There might be days or maybe weeks before I complete a book and am able to write about them. With that in mind and my past failures of keeping an up-to-date blog, I understand I need to start writing filler posts. I am aware that these filler posts need to be relevant and not the ranting's of my everyday life. Because who really wants to hear those? So for my inaugural filler post, I will be discussing my experience with my favorite young adult trilogy of all time, His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman.

When I was growing up, I saw the cover of The Golden Compass too many times to count. A girl riding on a polar bears back was not only cool, but made you want to look twice. I was curious about this book, not knowing it was part of a trilogy. However, I wouldn't read these books until after I graduated from college. Until the day one of my good friends, Allison, gave it a review I knew I couldn't ignore.

It was during a time of unemployment when I checked out The Golden Compass from my local library. I was reading a lot during this time since I suddenly found myself in possession of a lot of time. I grew up loving sci-fi/fantasy books, so this was a perfect way to spend some of my time. I was instantly transported into Lyra Belacqua's parallel world that mirrored our own, but was different in so many ways. I followed her on the roof tops of Jordan College and drunk in the mystery of "Dust". I needed to know what this all meant as much as this 12 year old girl did. At 22 years old, I found myself wishing I could read the alethiometer as Lyra did, but of course I was now an adult and "Dust" had already settled onto my shoulders. My daemon had already been set. The Golden Compass introduce me to a world that was magical, filled with talking animals, witches, gypsies, daemons (animals representing a part of your soul) and much more. Little did I know that the second installment, The Subtle Knife, would draw me in further.

After finishing the first book, I rushed to the library to check out the next one. It was checked out, but the audiobook wasn't. I was so hungry for more, listening to the book was the next best option and I quickly realized the BEST option. The narration of the book was comprised of a whole cast of people. It was as if I was watching the book to come to life and it made the books so much better. This is the book where you meet Lyra's "soulmate", Will. You are also introduced to angels (good and bad), the possibility of God, a knife that can cut through worlds, and Spectres (characters who feed on adult's Dust leaving them alive but lifeless). This book transported you into many different universes and worlds (truly uncountable). It was a book where you found out the true nature of many characters and watched a love story begin. It was a book of preteens growing up in tough times and knowing they might have to "save the world".

The third installment, The Amber Spyglass, is His Dark Materials amazing conclusion. I started reading this trilogy not understand the religious connotations behind the text. The trilogy was talking about the death of God. The death of a religion that was oppressing it's people. This trilogy touched upon huge subjects, but in such beautiful ways. We were able to travel into the Underworld and witness spirits being released from a bleak existence. We were taken to a land of Mulefa (elephant-like creatures who inhabit another Earth), watched Will and Lyra truly fall in love, see characters we grown to love die, and suffer a terrible heartbreak at the very end.

Of course I am skimming over a lot of important details, but to keep this post as short as possible I am only going over what I remember fondly. This trilogy, which I have read and listened to three times, still surprises me. Still makes me go through the wide spectrum of emotions from start to finish. Though I grew up seeing the cover of the first book, I now hold each book close to my heart (as corny as that sounds, it's very true). I cannot recommend this books more. It's too bad they didn't get as much recognition in the public eye as Harry Potter, but such is life for some amazing literature.

So there you have it. A personal review of a "better late than never" discovery. Now go read it!

- P

Book 1: Animal Farm by George Orwell

Spoiler Alert...I will be talking about parts of this book freely, so if you haven't read it please don't read my review. 

Who hasn't at least heard of this book? I definitely had (multiple times) in the 27 years I have been alive. I knew that this book would be a good place to start my journey. I also appreciated how short it was (83 pages). To be honest, I didn't know much about this book. In fact, beyond knowing it was written by George Orwell, I knew next to nothing. I didn't even read the summary before beginning, so little did I know this was about a farm animals rebelling against their human owners and then trying to make a life for themselves (successfully and unsuccessfully). Maybe it should have been obvious it had to do with animals from the title, but I assumed the title was abstract. I guess not. 

After reading the 'Notes on the Text', at the beginning of the book, I learned this was a satire of the Russian Revolution. The Russian Revolution is not a revolution I remember learning about in high school. I probably did, but I honestly don't remember anymore. I feel bad about that especially after watching the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. I learned a little about their past from the Opening and Closing ceremonies, but not too much. I also (maybe embarrassingly) know a bit about the revolution from the "Lost Princess", Anastasia, and the "not-disney" movie Anastasia. This doesn't surprise me, but it's still not a spectacular way of remembering another countries revolution. 

Back to the book...

After learning that I would be reading about how the Russia Revolution and communism came to be in the form of discontent farm animals I was hooked. Not only because I sympathized with these farm animals and understood why they wanted to be freed from their oppressors, but also because reading about animals who learned how read and run a farm happened to be entertaining. However, I quickly read beneath the entertaining qualities of the text and saw what the book really was. (And the story quickly turned dark.)

I read this book in about 2 hours over the course of a workday. Twenty minutes during my metro ride into work, an hour during my lunch break, and 40 more minutes after work. I was enthralled in the story. I found myself shouting out loud at some of the things that were going on. The blatant manipulation and lies. The false anger that was piling up from the so called treachery from Snowball, the pig who was kicked out of the group fairly quickly. The fear mounting from the mass executions going on for insubordination and treason. The animal's strong desire to be free from a tumultuous past that made them look beyond the horrible things happening in their present.  It was chaos and it's hard to understand why the "lower class" animals choose not to see Napoleon (Stalin) for who he was. A crazy, self-rightous dictator who thought he knew best and just steam rolled anyone who disagreed. Steam rolled being the kinder way of saying, execution. 

It's easy to criticize the characters who weren't standing up for what they thought was right. But then you remember they weren't under the constant protection of guard dogs. It's easy to become annoyed at the animals who kept on forgetting what the original 7 Commandments were. "Hello!" I shout out, "Don't you remember it was "All animals are equal"!? It's wasn't that long ago you made these up!" But then you remember these are animals. These characters stand for the real people who fell under Stalin's spell or reign of terror. How did they not notice they were slaves? How did they not notice how much their lives now sucked!? They probably did, but fear is a powerful tool. It clearly works when a dictator is in power. 

I can assume this is how it was during the Russian Revolution and beyond. In fact, I know a lot of this mirrored that time as I read about it shortly after finishing the book. These types of books make you realize how lucky you are. It definitely makes me realize how lucky I am. This is not a type of world I would want to live in. It's a type of world I might not survive in. Being put face to face with this "fairy tale" world that Orwell has written makes you count your blessings. 

Endings are a big part of books for me. Anyone who knows me knows how much I despised the ending to Harry Potter. I never needed to know how they ended up in their late 30s and that Harry gave his youngest son 15 different names to memorialize important people in his life (of course 15 is an over exaggeration, but it shows how much this ending bugged me). With a disappointing ending to one of the most important book series of my childhood destroyed, I now approach endings of great books with care. I was surprised how abruptly this book ended. I was hoping to find out what happened to Snowball. If the "lower class" animals would stand up to Napoleon after seeing him interact with "the enemy" so freely. If Benjamin, the donkey, would finally stand up and rebel in some way. Those are questions that would never be answered, but after ruminating on the end for a few hours I have come to appreciate it more. Understanding that this ending was to indicate the start of the Cold War, I walked away blown away and satisfied. 

At first glance, this book looks simple. If I hadn't known it was an satire of Russia history I would have walked away thinking how sad it was to see these animals rise so high and then fall so low. I would have found it merely entertaining without understanding the deeper meaning. I'm glad I took the time to learn more about this books background and author. 

Though I might not have blown you away with anything new about this book, above are the feeling and thoughts I walked away with. It was a great book to start with and gave me a strong push toward the next one. Who knows what it will be! 

- P 

Why 100 Books?

In 2013, I was beginning to realize, after almost 5 years outside of academia, my brain was slowly becoming mush. Not literal mush, but I felt a lot of what I learned way back in 2008 was starting to fade. Writing essays, testing my knowledge and seeking out academic knowledge wasn't something I did on a day-to-day basis anymore. So as my path started shifting towards grad school, so did my pursuit of new knowledge and rekindling old. 

I went back to school, taking some undergraduate course at George Mason University, and spent the year getting in touch with business and marketing practices since an MBA program with a concentration in marketing and entrepreneurship was the direction I was working towards. And with all this new knowledge flooding in, I found my academic niche again. But then February 2014 happened. That's when I discovered I somehow missed out on an important part of America education...big time.

It all came to a head when I saw TIME's 100 Greatest Novels of All Time. I read the list and realized, to my absolute horror, that I only read TWO of the novels on the list. TWO! How was I not told to read The Great Gatsby, or Catch-22 or Catcher in the Rye in high school or college? The two books I read on this list were To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis). The former was a high school requirement and the latter I read out of my own curiosity (I read all 7 of The Chronicles of Narnia). The other books I remember reading in school include: Great Expectations (Charles Dickens), Cell (Stephen King), Onyx and Crake (Margaret Atwood), Feed (M.T. Anderson), and The Dogs of Babel (Carolyn Parkhurst). I know I read a lot more books, but those are the only five books I truly remember reading, and most of them were from college. 

After reading Time's list, I quickly snapped into action. I had already made plans to start reading more business books written by CEOs and business leaders (after a graduate school interviewer suggested a few titles as sage advice), so adding 100 more books seemed daunting. But I quickly went through the list and found many that caught my interest, and many were under 300 pages. I knew I could somehow pull this challenge off even with the added business books. So '100 Books in 100 Weeks' was born. If I am offered a spot in one of the graduate programs I have applied to, the 100 weeks might be extended, but I am still confident I can make a dent in this list even with some of the large 500+ page books on the list. 

So begins my journey to read some of the greatest literature known to man. I am excited and will be writing about every book I read. I cannot promise amazing insights or fantastic analysis. These are the musings of someone who isn't well-versed in literature and doesn't always pick out the correct  themes or knows what exactly what was going on in the world when the author wrote the book, so the symbolism or comparisons might be lost on me. I hope by the end of this journey I will be better at all these things I just mentioned, but if not that won't bother me. I am just ready to read these books and tell you my reactions. So here we go! 

- P