Out of the Dust

Out of the Dust is a Newberry Award winner written by Karen Hesse. I had never heard of it but was assigned to read it for class. I was really impressed with the writing style. It is written entirely in free verse as opposed to the standard chapter by chapter narration. I didn't know if I would like a book written all in poetry, but it works well here. The poetry isn't fancy or pretentious, as I thought it might be. It's simple, descriptive and easy-to-follow.
The story follows a young girl born in Oklahoma during the great Dust Bowl of the thirties. From a young age, she is faced with challenges foreign to most Americans now. Her mother dies while she is still young and she spends months blaming herself for it. Her dad is quiet and withdrawn, always worrying about their farm on which he can't grow anything.
The girl dreams of moving away to a better life. Her ticket to this new life is her above-average piano playing skills. She has the potential to go somewhere with her talent and is somewhat famous locally. But that all changes when she accidentally burns her hands with boiling oil. For the rest of the book, she has to overcome the pain in her hands and learn to play again.

Nice Work

This is the first book I had to read this semester for a contemporary British literature class I'm in. To tell the truth, I haven't been too impressed by anything in the class so far, with one big exception, The Remains of the Day, whose review is coming soon.
In the novel, by David Lodge, a conservative, industrialist man and a liberal literary theory professor woman are forced to work with one another as part of a government-sponsored program encouraging understanding between people from different worlds. It's not a bad idea for a book and the reader gets to see things looked at from two very different view points. Along the way, Lodge satirizes both ends of the spectrum. He's never mean, but he does point out the follies of both parties. On one side we have a man, Victor, who thinks that any thought beyond the practical is a waste of time. He's very pragmatic. Robyn, the woman, on the other hand spends all her time in school theorizing and thinking, but never really generating anything. Either of these extremes can be bad, and that seems to be Lodge's point. Of course, by the end of the book both Victor and Robyn have realized that perhaps a little of both worlds can be good for them.
Like I said, I wasn't terribly impressed with this book, but it's okay.

Life of Pi

All right, its been awhile since I made a post. I've been caught up doing school stuff. The good thing is that most of my school work involves reading books so I've found a lot of good new literature this semester. Eventually I will get it all up here.
You may have heard of Yann Martel's Life of Pi on Oprah or something like that. But believe me, its still worth reading. I read it for a literary theory class I'm in as a perfect example of post-structuralism in novels. Before reading it, I was not too familiar with theory but this book helped me to understand it.
I really like this book. There is all kinds of stuff going on in it. The story is about a boy named Pi who is raised in a zoo. Not in a cage, mind you, his family owns the zoo.
After telling about his childhood there, his family leaves India to go the America and the boat crashes en route. The rest of the book details Pi's survival story as he is shipwrecked and stuck on a lifeboat with an adult Bengal tiger. This sounds very far-fetched, and its supposed to.
The awesome thing about this book is it presents itself as a true story. Depending on the reader, this can be believed up to certain points. But eventually, nearly all readers, I would say, catch on to the absurdity of it all and see what Martel is doing. He presents Pi's story as true, but at the end of the book, makes the argument, and I agree with him, that even stories told as truth are always mixed with different interpretations and perspectives. In this way, every story that is ever told becomes fiction in the telling.
I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone that hasn't read it and might. Just keep in mind that on another level, this idea is also Martel's philosophy of religion and belief. When you see how things play out in the end, it is an interesting take on how to view faith and belief. Basically, Martel says, there are certain things that have definitely happened. For instance, we humans know we are here on earth. That's the fact. How we explain this differs from person to person. We can explain it through nothing but cold, hard facts, or as Martel calls it, "dry, yeastless factuality." Or, we can choose, say religion, which explains things in a more creative and uplifting way. Martel contends that to choose just the factuality is to deprive life of its wonder.
This is a great book. Its easy to read and has some very interesting ideas.