Sunday Salon...on Monday.

This has been a horrid week. My laptop has some insane virus on it that is driving me crazy and while Matt and I have tried to get it off with a lot of different scans, nothing is working. We decided that we are just going to wipe it and reboot it tonight. Luckily, I got on yesterday and managed to save everything I needed, so I shouldn't lose anything else (I lost my novel in progress back in January when we tried to wipe the laptop-sensing a trend?)

Since I was so upset about not blogging and getting new posts up, reading fell by the wayside for most of the week. I did start Wuthering Heights on Saturday morning and now I only have about 50 pages left. But, reading was not as successful as it could have, and should have been.

I also had my first day of substitute teaching on Friday. I spent half the day in a kindergarten classroom. I was completely out of my element, since I am certified for 6-12, so I don't think I will be taking a job like that again any time soon. I do have a 2-day job lined up for Thursday and Friday at the district that wanted to hire me this past summer and the job is in my age group and subject matter, so it should be a fun 2 days!

I also signed up for the Classics Circuit in April. I am bummed not to be participating in the Zola tour. I read Germinal in December and loved it, but it was the only Zola on my list. To make up for my disappointment, I will be reading two novels for Dumas, which I am eager to read.

I am also disappointed in the lack of entries for my giveaway, so if you haven't already, please enter! And spread the word! There is a link at the top of my blog.

Goals for this week:

• Laptop back up and running.
• Finish posts for O Pioneers and Little Women
• Finish Wuthering Heights
• Read Alias Grace

Happy reading everyone and I hope to be back in the full swing of things soon!

Book 18: Tragedy.

There are scenes that you can come across in reading that really just chill your bones. I read such a scene in Germinal back in December. It so shocked me that I had to set the book aside and mentally get over the images before I could go back to reading that novel. I also had a huge urge to talk about it with someone, so Matt was the lucky recipient of my ranting about the disturbing images that plagued my mind.

Sometimes, the chill and feel of a book can offset you. I feel that way with The Dollmaker. From the beginning, the reader knows that pain and heartache are coming. When the first tragedy happens, you think, "Oh, things must be getting better after this." Then the next thing happens and you think, "The author can't do anymore to this family."

But she does.

And it seems like she is overdoing the tragedy that this family feels, but you have to step back and look at it all in a broader scope. The whole era the novel is set in (World War II) is a tragedy. Mothers and sisters and wives received letters that their husbands and sons and brothers were dead or missing constantly. Arnow relives that fear in the novel and the characters. They are living within a tragedy and are merely victims of circumstance.

So when the great tragedy strikes in the middle of this novel, you feel so deeply for the characters. I got to this scene late at night when Matt was sleeping and the cats were curled up on my chest.

I teared up.

I rarely get moved to tears by anything that is not directly related to my own life. Even then, it takes a lot to drive me to tears. So I am not one of those girls who cries during sappy movies, or who gets emotional reading most books.

So when I say I teared up reading about the pain of the Nevels family, it was a powerful amount of pain. And it was well-written.

And while I am only halfway through the novel, I know that Arnow is going to throw more into the lives of the Nevels family and the people living near them in the projects of Detroit. And where some writers through all this angst and torment into their novels to try and make them more appealing (I am currently thinking of those sappy Sweet Valley High novels I used to read), Arnow is not using tragedy as a way to rev up the reader. Instead, she is using it as a reflection of the time period.

I love the era of World War II in America. In college, I took a couple of classes on the era to fulfill requirements for my history degree. For one class, we had to interview an individual who lived during the time period. I was matched up with an older lady who lived in Lansing in an assisted living center. She lived in Detroit during the war as a little girl. Her father fought overseas in Europe and her mother and three older brothers all worked for the factories in Detroit. Her stories were very similar to the experiences Arnow shares (Arnow also lived in the projects during the war) and this woman also painted a very tragic picture of life on the home front during the war.

When I was interviewing this woman, I remember feeling the tragedy of the era. Everyone left back thought the world was coming to an end. Boys were being drafted into the military and being shot. There were food and gas shortages. To those left behind, some questioned whether it would be better to be "over there" fighting as opposed to staying home and waiting.

I can feel this pain and tragedy in Arnow's novel. She has captured the heart of the times.

It is simply beautiful.

Book 13: Finished.

With out a doubt, Germinal is the best book I have read during this challenge. I’ll even go so far as to say that Germinal is one of the best books I have read this year. And I’ll go even further to say that Germinal is one of the best books I have ever read.

Truly.

It wasn’t the story that made it great, or the writing, or the characters, or the time period, or the drama. It was a combination of all of those things in the right amount.

Germinal serves as a perfect time capsule of the time in which it was set. The characters are real, as is the situation. The plight of the miners is tangible to the reader and you feel as though you are right there with them.

When the story eventually turns to tragedy, you feel as though those people are your own, and that you have grown up with them in the mining village. You have suffered and starved with them and lost your own family members to the horror of the mines.

But even with all of its dark and depressing plotlines, the novel still leaves you with a bit of hope in its last words:

“Beneath the blazing of the sun, in that morning of new growth, the countryside rang with song, as its belly swelled with a black and avenging army of men, germinating slowly in its furrows, growing upwards in readiness for harvests to come, until one day soon their ripening would burst open the earth itself.”

While it is a story of a group of miners striking because of low pay, lack of food, and horrid working conditions, it is also the tale of a time in everyone’s history where the working class had enough. The United States got that in their factories and shops. You might even know about the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where women were locked in a burning factory and jumped from windows to plummet to their own deaths.

Labor strikes are a part of almost every developed country’s history. People rising up against corruption and prejudice to fight for what they believe to be their own.

So…Germinal. Why do I keep singing its praises?

It is how Zola ties everything together. Rather than focus on one specific instant, or one specific character, Zola creates a world in the 7 parts to his novel. Each part is its own story, with the introduction of characters, a rising struggle, and the inevitable climax, which usually leads to tragedy. Each part grabs you until you finish it. Then you move on. It is almost as if Zola crafted 7 independent problems, but tied them together in the larger context of the novel.

It’s amazing. And breathtakingly beautifully written. I marked hundreds of passages for their beauty and it is too hard to pick my favorites. Perhaps my ultimate favorite is above., the last words from the novel that seem to sum up its message. That even through struggle, death, and tragedy, there is still hope. There is always hope.

Germinal is without a doubt a book I will be returning to again and again. I recommend it above anything else that I have read so far for this challenge. Just make sure that before you get to Part 7, you make sure you have enough time to read straight through it. Trust me.

Book 13: Necessary Violence.

Violence for the sake of violence is unnecessary. Especially in a book where it is not needed to prove a point. In fact, you could say that about a lot of things. Sometimes, romance isn’t necessary either and it simply detracts from the power of the book. In my opinion, I think authors throw it in (at times) because they think it is necessary to keep readers. And while I do love a good love story, sometimes it only ruins the message of their main plot line.

However, in Germinal, the violence is extremely necessary. Like I said in an earlier post, Germinal is about a mining town where the workers are underpaid, underfed, and starving to death. When they decide to strike, they launch a series of events that spiral them further and further into poverty.

I have come to see that Zola’s realistic portrayal of every aspect of this novel is what makes it so powerful. Not only does he explain the minute details of a mining town and its people (both proletariat and bourgeois), he also explains every other aspect of the characters’ lives. They aren’t just names. You are in their houses. You know who is sleeping with whom and whose husband had no idea. You know who the town “whore” is, as well as where you can go to borrow bread. The minute details are what make this story so realistic.

As well as the violence.

It is not that you don’t see it coming. I mean, you read passages where a certain character is being thrown around by her “man” and beaten. So the reader does see violence early on. But the intensity of the violence keeps going up and up until, at one point, I had to set the book aside.

The scene I am talking about (and it won’t ruin the novel for you if you read about it), is when an angry mob defiles a dead man’s body by cutting off his…well…you know what and parading it around on a stick for all the town to see.

Out of context it is a disturbing scene. Really disturbing, but when you are reading a long, you are on the side of the mob. You can see why they would do such a thing and why they feel the way they do. In this case, the violence is understandable and adds to the book. It is only a further portrayal of the plight of the town.

It is necessary violence.

Later, when a mob is mowed down by soldiers, it is also necessary violence, and violence that Zola orchestrates beautifully. The entire central portion of the novel is the rising of the strike and its progression. For anyone who has studied labor history, strikes usually go until there is a breaking point. Sometimes that breaking point is handled in a way to avoid violence, but there have been many cases where a strike has ended in violence, particularly in the time period this all takes place (around the turn of the 20th century). There were no unions to protect workers back then.

So when the mob is mowed down and people die, it is shocking. It is violent in its description, but it is necessary. How else would Zola have portrayed the extent of anger the strikers were feeling but to have them transform into an angry mob? And how else could he have shown his readers the ultimate end and disheartenment of those strikers?

While out of context these scenes seem like too much, they add so much to the story. So even though I had to set aside the novel after reading both scenes, I have realized that one of the main reasons this is heralded as a classic is because of its realism. Zola didn’t shy away from the violent side of human nature, or mob mentality. Instead, he takes the risk of explaining it fully and painting very vivid pictures for his readers. I get it and I praise him for it. He used violence in a way that added to his novel, and probably pushed it to the place where it is today.

I only wish that more writers would use such discretion in their own writing. Sometimes it is okay to use that kind of detail and mental image for reader, and sometimes, you just don’t need it.

Sunday Salon: December 6, 2009.

This has been an incredibly busy week for me, thus, the lack of blogging. I have been trying to make an effort in the last few weeks to reach out to other bloggers, but sadly, I am lacking the time. With the wedding only being 20 days away (eek!), I think it is too much to ask of myself to devote the few minutes I have of free time to searching out other book bloggers and networking a bit. So, that will have to wait until the New Year.

I have spent some time this week reflecting on this past year. This has truly been the roughest year I can remember. A lot has happened to make this a very emotional year, and it isn’t even over yet! I know that 2010 will have a lot of great things in store for me, so I am excited to get there. With that being said, once we are back from our honeymoon, on the 4th, I will definitely find myself with more time on my hands to devote to blogging. For the couple of months I have been here, I have loved it. It is nice to know that I have my own place here. Sometimes it is hard, knowing that my blog is not where I want it to be yet, but I know that in a few weeks, it can be. So be prepared for insanity once the calendars change to 2010.

Anyway, back to this week. Like I said, it has been kind of crazy. I finished all my Christmas shopping, with the exception of my grandmother and Matt’s step-dad. I also have been calling our wedding vendors to set up appointments and get everything finalized. I have a few more phone calls to make in the morning. I am hoping by the end of this coming week to have everything mostly set.

RSVPs have been flying in. We are up to 181 confirmed guests for the wedding, which is excellent. We’re hoping to hit the minimum number of 225 for the room so we don’t have to go crazy money wise, but if not, we already know what we’re going to do to upgrade. There are still 90 people yet to RSVP, so keep your fingers crossed.

I also went for a practice run of my bridal hair yesterday, which turned out beautifully. We discussed a few small changes for the big day, but I am really happy with the stylist and her work.

Last night, Matt and I headed to downtown Detroit for a concert as a requirement for one of his classes. The concert was held in the historic Fort Street Church (go here for more: http://www.fortstreet.org/). It was a beautiful church, built in 1855. When it burned down, it was rebuilt in 1877. It is a gorgeous building and we got to sit in the upper ring, looking down on the main floor and the front of the church. The performance was of Handel’s “Messiah.” For anyone not music minded, “Messiah” contains what it called the “Hallelujah Chorus” (picture clouds parting and light beaming down while a choir sings, “Hallelujah!”). It was a wonderful performance, if long, and we both really enjoyed it.

Today was spent packing up some things to move over to the apartment and then moving all those things into our apartment. Officially, all of my books are now moved in, all 1200+ of them are stacked in boxes in the closet. That closet is officially stuffed to the gills with books and some other items. Remind me to take a picture to show you the madness. The only books I kept here are a stack of 15 or so to see me through until we can purchase some bookshelves. We also moved over a bunch of other items. I am amazed by how much stuff I have accumulated. I have gone through a lot, but there are still a few things left to clean out—mainly some bins in our basement FULL of stuffed animals. One goal for the week is to go through them and decide which ones I don’t want, which will be many, and donate the rest. I am hoping to find some homes and shelters in nearby Pontiac which will take them for needy children.

In reading news, I am still in the middle of Germinal. I honestly haven’t had time to read, even though I am so close to finishing it. Honestly, there was a scene which kind of tore me up a bit so I stopped reading it last night in favor of sleep. Don’t fear, however, I have a lot to say about the book, which will all be forthcoming.

Goals for this week are to finish Germinal and to start something new. I’m not sure what I’ll grab, but I know that it won’t be a play.

Happy Reading!

Book 13: Germinal.

“Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, it a clever but uneducated man with a dangerous temper. Compelled to take a back-breaking job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other word, he discovers that his fellow-miners are ill, hungry, and in debt, unable to feed and clothe their families. When conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further, Lantier finds himself leading a strike that could mean starvation or salvation for all. The thirteenth novel in Zola’s great Rougon-Macquart sequence, Germinal expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few, but also shows humanity’s capacity for compassion and hope,” (Penguin Classics Ed. 2004).

Germinal is not what I expected. It is far more. When I sat down to start it, I had every intention of stopping after 20 pages. When I finally did put it down, I had read over 70 and wanted to read more. By then, it was 2 in the morning and I needed to sleep, but even after I shut my eyes, I was haunted by what I read:

“And in the heavy silence created by the crushing mass of earth it was possible to put an ear to the rock and hear the teeming activity of human insects on the march, from the whirr of the cables rising and falling as the cages took the coal to the surface to the grinding of tools as they bit into the seam deep within each working,” (39).

I have never read any of Zola’s work. And I had never even heard of Zola before deciding to add this work to my list. It is the only novel by him I will be reading for this challenge, but I have already decided that the rest of his body of work is a must read for myself in the future.

The book is haunting. The degree of poverty is extreme and described in such vivid detail that you truly feel the pain of these characters. They must beg the wealthy for food to get by. They are rejected by shop-owners because they are already in so much debt that they cannot pay. They are dirty and starving and malnourished. The mine workers cough up black phlegm and their skin and hair is discolored. Even with all these things against them, the miners still seem to hold on to hope that one day, things will get better. On the verge of constant starvation, they make do.

They beg from those with more and barter with shop-keepers. To get bread for a week, they send their daughters to pick up their food and to “pay” for their food with sex. They send their children of ten or eleven to the mines to work and stretch a handful of coffee grounds over 3 days to get the most from it.

There is love among the miners and boys and girls go off together and have babies before they are married and while they still live at home.

Throughout this narrative, Zola describes everything in perfect detail—from the living conditions, to the feeling of oppression down in the mines, to the way the youngest children scrounge for food.

In one word, the tale is sad. Or hopeful.

Etienne, who appears in the mining town in the first pages, offers an outside perspective on the situation and encourages the miners to think about fighting back against the wealthy who are keeping them down. And while I have not gotten to the strike, I am anticipating it with every page I flip. Tensions are mounting and I so desperately want these characters to succeed.

It is no wonder that when I went to research this novel I found quite a few comments about how it became a rallying point for French workers. And as it eventually spread, it became a battle-cry for the working class. I even found out that at Zola’s funeral (this happened in 1902 and many believe he was murdered and it wasn’t quite an “accident” as it was made out to be), workers screamed out “Germinal! Germinal!” as his casket passed.

I say all this trying to portray the emotional impact that this novel is already having on me. I didn’t expect it. This is a far more emotional work than almost anything else I have read so far. The people are far more real, the situation more dramatic, and the writing…well, the writing is beautiful.

At the time of this post, I am already over 200 pages into the massive 550 page behemoth. I have no doubt I will finish it as quick as I can. I am only said that it is the only work by Zola on my list and that I must wait to read more of his masterpiece.

“Then, suddenly, Etienne made up his mind. Perhaps he imagined he’d caught another glimpse of Catherine’s bright eyes, up there at the entry to the village. Or perhaps it was the wind of revolt beginning to blow from the direction of Le Voreux. He could not tell. He simply wanted to go down the mine again, to suffer and to struggle; and he though angrily of those “people” Bonnemort had told him about, and of the squat and sated deity to whom ten thousand starving men and women daily offered up their flesh without ever knowing who or what this god might be,” (72).

Sunday Salon: November 29, 2009.

I wish I would have posted this on Sunday, rather than late Monday/early Tuesday morning.

Like many of you, I had a busy weekend with family and food. My stomach still hasn’t recovered from all of the stuffing and turkey. It was good though. My younger sister came home from college and I got to spend some time with her in her new car.

Matt, my brothers, and some close friends drove down to Chicago for his bachelor party. From what I have heard, they had a great time and drank a lot. When he got back Sunday evening, he was tired, so we relaxed a little and watched Lost. I never really watched it, so he is getting me into it for the last season that is airing soon. I have to say that if I had been watching from the beginning, I probably would have been mad to not know the answers to everything.

Anyway, like I said, it was a good weekend.

In reading news, I managed to hit my goals for last week. I finished The Bluest Eye as well as The Stranger (post will be forthcoming). I also managed to start Germinal by Emile Zola (again, post forthcoming) and at the time of writing this, I am well into it. It is a 500+ page book, so it might take me a little while.

The goals for this week are to finish Germinal. I’m not quite sure what I am going to read next, but I think I might read a play or get into a Steinbeck novel. We shall see…

Happy Reading!

Sunday Salon: November 22, 2009.

This has been a slightly crazy week. Coming off from my wedding shower last weekend, I was kept busy with a lot of unpacking and organizing at the apartment. Then I spent a good deal of time cleaning out my closet and my dresser in efforts to ease the final move over in January, after the wedding.

I also kind of hit a low point on Friday. I had a panic attack in front of Matt, which I am sure freaked him out. Stress from being unemployed and having no money kicked in, so I freaked out. After a reality check with Matt and my mom, I know things will be okay. And of course, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. As soon as we’re back from Florida and our honeymoon, I have no more commitments to prevent me from getting a job. I just have to keep telling myself that everything will be okay.

In reading news, I finally finished Great Expectations, which I was starting to think would never happen. I even entertained the idea of quitting my little reading project and going back to reading the science-fiction, fantasy, and YA lit I love and miss. But to only give up after 10 books is pretty weak and I just need to keep my head down and keep going. I know that by reading through this list I am proving a few things to myself in regards to determination. Also, how could I ever expect my future students to keep going if I gave up this early on?

This week has truly been a lesson for me. I think I just needed a little reality check and I am all set to continue.

So, I have finished the first 10 books off the list of classics I made. Which means I am a whole 4% complete with my list! Only 240 more books to go!

This week I am planning on getting through The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and The Stranger by Albert Camus. I also want to get into Germinal by Emile Zola if I can. It’s doable as long as I set aside the time to read, which I haven’t been doing recently.

I think this is the first year since I started tracking the number and titles of books where I won’t be hitting the magical 100. Last year I barely hit 100, but the year before I was at 108. Realistically, there is no reason why I shouldn’t be there, but it took me entirely way too long to get through Great Expectations. I have 14 books to read before January 1st, and with the holidays, the wedding, and the honeymoon, I think it just won’t happen, but I am going to try.

Here’s to a great week of reading ahead of me.