I'm not going to count the pages of my lit textbook (but if we were there is around 1,000 of them), but will instead give you thoughts on the books we've covered in BC the past few months.
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Having never read anything else by Willa Cather, and being quite a city girl now, I was genuinely surprised by my deeply set reaction to My Antonia. This book flew through my fingers as I lost myself among the early American countryside. Simple depictions of landscape and characters allowed the reader to chart their own understanding of the narrow scope of entertainment and relationships on the prairie. Although Antonia is told from the perspective of the male protagonist, we see how his image of the once beautiful Antonia is lost to time and circumstance. In stories like Bridges of Madison County, what we come to understand is that some endings that occur are not idyllic, but they are marked by reality and the truth of things that cannot be.
One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
To be fair, I did not finish One Hundred Years, although I made every honest attempt. As a very linear reader, I often have trouble when the lines between fantasy and reality are not clearly marked--such is the case of the future/past world created by Marquez in One Hundred Years. This oft acclaimed book has left me puzzled and without a desire to return.
In stark comparison, I found myself enthralled with the grotesque portrait of the undying love of Florentino Ariza for Feremina Daza. Ariza is illustrated much like the Slumdog of Slumdog Millionare and his youthful yearning for the passionate and caustic Feremina is eloquently relayed in the most poignant dialect of teenage love. However, over one summer Feremina begins to understand the politics of romance--a life of comfort, of prestige, of bloodlines--and relinquishes her engagement to Ariza. Instead she marries the stable Urbino--a local doctor of repute because of his ferocious attempts to cure cholera in the region. Urbino and Feremina's marriage is one of careful and cautious routine. Marquez's downfall here is that he creates a stable partnership for Urbino and Feremina (which, while perhaps not based on mutual love is based on something more like friendship).
What makes Love so worth reading is the chronological journey from youth to old age--Marquez takes us beyond where the Harlequin romance novel stops and gives a glimpse into what "happily ever after" may look like. And it's worth noting that several sites dedicated to the book mention Marquez's comparison to Love being a kind of encompassing illness--in this case, cholera.
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Having not been able to make it through a second book which asked me to throw about chronology and reality simultaneously, I did not finish Rushdie's acclaimed novel.
Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud by Jonathan Safran Foer
Told from the perspective of 10 year old Oskar Shchell, we encounter a family with a deep connection to 9/11--Oskar's dad was in one of the twin towers when it collapsed. Told with the stunning fragility of a child so manic with grief that goes out in search of an answer to his father's final puzzle, Foer's novel is heartbreakingly honest. Oskar confronts his mother's grief as well and her new-found comfort in a male "friend." Oskar's narration is complimented with the interspersed story of his grandparent's courtship and his grandfather's nightmarish escape from occupied Germany.
Foer makes incredible use of literary elements including perhaps the most under-utilized tool of silence(both the silence of Oskar's mute grandfather and dead father). In addition to the text, Foer includes Oskar's "images," entire pages that depict the world and its complexities through the lens of Oskar's camera.
This book is startlingly engaging. I cannot recommend it enough for it's well-drawn characters, multiple narrative lines, and unfortunate basis in post-9/11 America.
On the shelves: I Love You Beth Cooper (BC selection) & A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
