Weekly Bookish Quote

I love this one:

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon

Just recently I found out about the Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon, that apparently is a huge thing.
Because I am a newcomer in the book blogging world, and also because I am greedy, I want to bite a piece of the readathon cake, which promises to be quite interesting considering my read list!

Write Good or Die by multiple authors (173 pages) REVIEW
A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift (158 pages)
Sandwiches by Sarah Tyson Heston Rorer (128 pages)
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (46 pages)
The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift (23 pages)

As you can see, all the works are not too voluminous. But, by the descending page number of the books I picked, you can also see how nervous I am about the upcoming ordeal! I don't want to fail, no-no-no, especially not at my first time! So this is why I picked some small pieces, no more than 50 pages, in order to get at least 3 out of 5 books done!

Here, as well as in my recently created Twitter account (@olga_rabo), I'll be making updates on  my progress and results! I am extremely excited and am very looking forward to sharing this experience with other participants!

Who else is taking part in the Readathon? Share your book lists!

Book Review: The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho

When it comes to The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho, people usually split into two groups: the ones who love the book and the ones who hate it. The 'haters' often look down at the 'admirers', saying that the latter ones simply lack literary taste. I realize it is mean, and unfair, and may sound square, but I have to agree with that: people who find Alchemist a good book have either no taste or simple are not well-read. Both are quite bad excuses.

The book, which is about 70 pages long in Word (for some reason (I think it's a marketing technique), some published editions manage to stretch this scribble up to whole 250 pages), can be read in several hours. The protagonist, an Andalusian named Santiago, sees a dream about the treasure hidden at Egyptian pyramids, and decided to follow the dream, like a true believer. On his way, Santiago meets an old man Melchizedel who becomes his mentor and who gives him two stones, Urim and Thummim, that are supposed to show 'answers' and give 'signs' at the crossroads of choices and difficult desicions. Santiago also meets a mysterious Alchemist who teaches him how to accept oneself and, together with that, the soul of the whole world. Successfully overcomming all ordeals that Santiago faced during his quest (i.e., doing everything that 'fate' prepared for him), he finally finds the treasure (and love, and self-acceptance).

I honestly do not understand the ecstatic rapture around this book. It is just so bad on so many levels. Let me touch upon several of them:

The Alchemist is a pure pop-culture product on the shallow level of Britney Spears' creations. Pop-culture is not innovative. It is simply a mash-up of everything that was once on the tide of public enthusiasm. Why do you think people like Lady Gaga? Her music is so catchy because it has something from Madonna's biggest hits, something from Elton John, something from Mercury, and son on.

The Alchemist is based on absolutely the same concept: borrowing. There is nothing new idea-wise, and everything that is borrowed is done in the tackiest way. I choose to say 'tacky' because writing another Book of Proverbs and making it sound as something 'original is exactly that. The Alchemist is a big colletcion of quotes, famous expressions, aphorisms and words of wisdom taken mailny from the Bible. But of course, one has to have read the Bible or at least be very knowledgeable about it to have the ability to recognize these little details, that, in this case, are not even archetypes, but a blatant copy.

Regarding the very literary value, the book has none. Bad style, bad writing, words are intert, the plot is bleak, the characters are extremely flat, and, most importantly, the author has absolutely no voice. And isn't the voice of an author, his perspective, his view, his angle, his opnions the main thing that is keeping the drive? Isn't that one of the very functions of literature - to convey one's true opinions and beliefs, to let yourself be heard and spread your own word? Unfortunately, Paolo Coelho does not 'own' anything. And his famous Alchemist is nothing but a sorry compilation.

PS. I wish people read more classics.

Book Review: Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. Jerome

My first acquaintance with the works of Jerome Klapka Jerome (I always loved the 'Klapka' part, it just sounds so ridiculous) happened in my early teens, with his famous Three Men in a Boat. Later on, I watched the soviet film adaptation of the book (1979, starring super-talented Andrej Mironov), which became one of my most favourite soviet movies. Because let's face it: Three Men in a Boat is the wittiest, funniest, silliest, most hilarious thing ever written about the idlest, laziest young imbeciles (and the world has those in abundance) who struggle to find a cause to employ their torrential energy at.

Three Men was written in 1889. Three years earlier, however, Jerome Jerome prepared the ground for the novel with his collection of essays Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, which is, as believed by many, a continuation of Lazy Thought of a Lazy Girl published anonymously be Jerome, who hid behind a female pseudonym of Jenny Wren.

Jerome Jerome dedicated this collection of observations to his most faithful friend and dearest companion in idleness: his pipe. Smoking it slowly and leisurely, this was, I believe, how he created his essays in which he raised a question of what it really means to be an idle fellow. 'A genuine idler is a rarity', Jerome points out, 'He is not a man who slouches about with his hands in his pockets. On the contrary, his most startling characteristic is that he is always intensely busy.' But, what does it really mean to be an idle fellow after all? Well, from what I learned out of JKJ's essays, being an idle fellow is almost the same as having ADHD. You try to focus on one thing, but eventually get carried away with the sudden torrent of other ideas with their powerful waves that are impossible to withstand. Jerome Jerome, a skillful idler himself, admitted that at times he felt like his own mind was giving way under this mental downpour. The only way to win the battle, however, is to surrender. Surrender, let your thoughts flutter like butterflies, and you will be rewarded with an ability to make some of the deepest observations on life that in normal, i.e. oppressed, state of being simply cannot be fit into your busy time-schedule. You learn a lot about the world once you let your mind dwell freely upon random things. You learn, for instance, that cats are smarter than dogs. Or that everybody is vain -- especially your pious auntie, and especially cats. You learn that people are better creatures when they are fed, and that melancholy, in small doses, is the most pleasurable thing on earth.

This is not shallow. This is life.

At first glance (and at second, too), Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, albeit full of Jerome's cleverest remarks on human nature, lacks common structure: there are no resolutions to the initially proposed issues of discussion; there is too much chaos and too much deviation. But it is exactly these deviations that make the essays such a pleasurable, and edifying, read.

Weekly Bookish Quote

The Circle of Literary Influences

Everybody knows that a good book is full of allusions to another good book. One of the most obvious examples would be my favourite John Fowles, who used to refer to Shakespeare in nearly all of his works. Of course, Fowles took his obsession over Shakespeare to an extreme - my college professor even used to say that Fowles was a Shakespeare-wanker (which is an extreme on its own, too). Nevertheless, it is true that literary history is ample with evidences of great poetic influences: Virgil, the father of Roman cultural heritage, set Homer as an example for imitation and modeled his 'Aeneid' on Homer epics. Virgil himself, in turn, was a literary 'father' to Dante, Dante to Chaucer, Chaucer to Spenser, Spenser to Milton, Blake and Wordsworth...This all only supports the fact that literary influences is a thing that should be taken into a strong consideration when reading a novel, as knowing where 'that' comes from, helps to undesrand what 'this' means.

Getting familiarized with the circle of literary influences is beneficial not only for mere readers and connoisseurs of art, but also for writers themselves. Nearly a century ago, T. S. Eliot, in his essay 'Tradition and Individual Talent', declared that a poet must 'develop or procure' an understanding of writers'predecessors, to whom we, moderns, own absolutely everything and without whom we would never exist. Which, if you think about it, is completely true.

However, the genealogical tree of literary influences is not entirely marked with solely blue-blooded signs. It is, on the opposite, a kneaded texture of allusions and borrowings from every possible form of human imagination, beyond literature: chemistry, physics, mathematics, music, cinema, philosophy, et cetera, et cetera. This one huge genealogy is a reflection of the whole heritage of artistic conceptions and perspectives on life.

The illustration presented below (source: BrainPickings) does not portray the chronological order of first and last things but is still immensely interesting as it helps to comprehend how all the forms employed by the human imagination are all puzzle pieces of the complete vision of the world, enfolded in a single circle - the circle of influences.

Book Review: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

I was never a fan of contemporary literature. Not because I didn't like it, but simply because I just never read it. I thought: it can never be as good as classics, which was a view imposed by my literature teacher at school, a harry-potter-hater. And so I never really tried how it tastes.

Well, The Secret Life of Bees tastes like honey. It is a sweet, viscous consistency of words that had a liberating, soothing effect on me. Sue Monk Kidd writes in a gorgeous language, using simple words that have a great power.

At first glance, the plot of the story looks a bit unoriginal: another coming-of-age story, another Bildungsroman. The main motifs are plain and unpretentious, and the end is quite predictable - a girl sets off on a quest to find truth about her long-dead mother, and she does, and eventually she even discovers for herself something more significant than that. On her way to finding the 'truth', Lily (that's her name), a tragic optimist and a naive believer, goes through things that may be even eye-rolling for some of the readers: first life-turning menstruation, first can-never-be-together love, dealing with an abusing father who lost his ability to love and withdrew into himself, and another set of cliches. Plus, the background motif of black people fighting for their rights is also quite hackneyed.

But. All these cliche stories touching upon the commonly known questions that have been on the table for no less than eternity already are so moving that it is simply impossible not to fall under their charm. And 'simply' is a determining word when it somes to this novel.

I like the simple idea conveyed in the book (which I define as a 'quest for independence') that in order to fully mature, it is necessary to find confidence and drive within, and stop seeking and craving for other people's acceptance. Accept yourself first. Love yourself first, forgive yourself first, cherish yourself first, and then the whole world will repeat after you, like a reflection in the mirror. This is what the real faith is. And Lily learns that this real faith is not hidden behind some certain symbols; instead, these symbols of faith can be anything else - a black Madonna, a bee-hive, a stone wall. Or Rosaleen's pancakes.

I also like how symbolically Sue Monk Kidd drew a parallel between the life of bees and life of humans. In the ancient times, the bees were considered to be a symbol of life, death and rebirth which is everything Lily underwent once she ran away from home and started a new life in the honeyland.

I love the simplicity of The Secret Life of Bees. It is exactly what makes the book so complex and so interesting - Sue Monk Kidd took everything we all already knew and mashed it up together in a unique combination that proposed a new, fresh, and a strong perspective on some everlasting things. And ultimately changed my views on the value of contemporary literature.

PS. Did you know that honey can be purple?