"Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien + A failed attempt at Cortázar

Time spent reading:
6/29: 12:50pm-1:00pm; 1:40pm-2:00pm
6/30: 8:15am-8:40am; 10:00am-11:45am

Total time: 2hrs 40min

233 pages

Aladdin Books

Published in 1971

Lindi, my wife, picked up this book from a used book store a while back, which made me think, "Oh no. It's that book!" See, when I was younger, I had a terrible fear of the Rats from The Secret of NIMH; the movie was dark, scary, and had giant, yellow-eyed rats in it! Do you wonder why I was put off by the film as a six year old? What I remembered from the movie was the evil cat, the magical amulet, a back-stabbing rat, and the scary elder rat named Nicodemus; sadly, most of those things were not in the book. Yes there is a back-stabbing rat, an evil cat, and a rat named Nicodemus, but there's no magic involved! The rats are simply intelligent! I find that alone to be far more exciting than the movie itself.

Occasionally, when I haphazardly choose a book I am going to read, I stray away from the "winners". Typically, I could care less whether it was on Oprah's Book List. (Hello? Anna Karenina? I bet Tolstoy hated that...) Nor will I pick up books that everyone is reading. (I am sorry James Patterson.) So when a Newberry Award Winner from NIMH fell into my hands, I thought about it for a bit, then opted to dive in. How pleasantly surprised I was. It is not often that I find myself almost literally racing to finish the book so I can find out what happens! Yes yes yes, I saw the movie as a child, and I know Mrs. Frisby and her family find shelter, but the book led up to the culminating moment with a bit more intensity than the movie. There were no sing-song playing children; they were all subdued characters as opposed to frolicking, singing mice voiced by Wil Wheaton of Star Trek: TNG fame.

The enduring tale slowly builds mystery over the course of the entire book, not just 50 pages like many modern writers try to do. It also demonstrates the differing hierarchy of the animal world, and how they interact. Mice are on a different intelli-social stratus as rats, while crows bring completely different, but exceptionally useful, traits to the table, and owls are on an entirely different level. And what happens? They ALL work together for the benefit of their own society. Why don't we do this now? Ugh!

Some side notes of distinguishing interest about the film and the book:
-Mrs. Frisby's name had to be changed to Brisby due to the makes of Frisbee, Wham-O, getting all upset. Lame.
-NIMH is an actual place. It's the National Institute of Mental Health.
-In the book, the Rats were attempting to attain a self-autonomous farming society. They wanted to change the perspective towards rats.
-Hints of Charles Darwin appear in the book, stating that at one point rats were higher on the evolutionary scale.

For a book that I loved so much, I really don't have much more to say about it. Awkward. Regardless, while the movie The Secret of NIMH is a longtime classic, which I still love, put away the movie and go read the book. Like always, the book just tends to be better.


Blow Up & other stories by Julio Cortázar

Time spent reading:
7/1: 9:15am-9:55am
7/4 9:30am-10:10am

Total time: 1hr 20min

277 pages

Pantheon Modern Writers Books

Published in 1963; translated in 1985

I'm not one to put a book down partway through and give up. But I did on this one. I tell you this now so that by the end you don't get all upset at me. It's like people who went and saw Titanic and cried at the end because it was sad. Duh! The ship sank; obviously this wasn't going to be a happy ending. Regardless, I tried real hard to focus on these stories; I thought I could get through them all since they were simply stories, but Cortázar is a unique guy with a unique writing style.

I love Cortázar. The first time I read anything by him was in college, and it was in Spanish. Even better! He is quirky and exceptionally unique; he was an incredible writer, prolific and mind-twisting. He was one of the instigators of Magical Realism. I'm not going to go through some diatribe about it, so just look it up in Wikipedia; you will find names like Cortázar and Márquez. Cortázar uses Magical Realism almost like a crutch; almost every story has some bizarre everyday twist to it that most people hardly even notice.

How about I just list why I love Cortázar? I made a list earlier with the NIMH entry; might as well follow suit:

1) Magical Realism. The man writes a story about vomiting rabbits, and how there is a loose tiger in the house! Marvelous.
2) Cortázar takes the mundanity of everyday life and changes it oh so well.
3) Multiple narrators are a constant. Cortázar flows between 3rd person to 1st and constantly makes himself part of the story as an outside writer or as Cortázar himself.
4) The deliberate details placed in the stories are amazing. In this collection of short stories, Cortázar takes small hints of a gigantic past and phrases them in a sentence or two.
5) He is never constant; who cares about the past tense vs. present tense? Most writers would look at this with disdain, but not Cortázar! He galavants through it with high speed.

So why could I not finish the book? There were three things: 1) I think I expected too much. 2) This was a moderately poor collection of works. 3) I cannot stand translated literature. There were several short stories that I believed were excellent examples of Cortázar's work, and others not so much. And obviously I'm a snob. Not just a music or everything else snob, but also a translation snob. Some of the phrases are now outdated, while others seem to be direct translations from the text. As you should know, a direct translation hardly ever works. Don't believe me? Go copy some random Spanish text and go to freetranslation.com and see if it works. Hardly. Numerous times you need to translate the feel of the text rather than the wordage. I had read a couple of these before in Spanish, so when I reached a story like The Night Face Up, I automatically think La Noche Boca Arriba, and then hear the story in Spanish instead of English. While the English translation is good, it will never fully capture the amazingness of the Spanish. I will step down from my soapbox.

Here are the shining moments of the book (in list form!):
House Taken Over - A brother and sister couple discover there is more to their inherited house than themselves.
Continuity of Parks - This is so short, I dare not summarize. Google it.
Letter to a Young Lady in Paris - Doesn't everyone vomit rabbits occasionally?
Bestiary - Which room is the tiger in today?
The Night Face Up - Don't ride motorcycles; you might get sacrificed.

Happy reading!

"Smith of Wootton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham" by J.R.R. Tolkien

First and foremost, this particular edition by Ballantine Books published both tales in one compendium; therefore I will separate them out, but still put them in one post!


Time spent reading:
6/12: 6:00pm-6:20pm
6/15: 10:30am-10:52am

Total time: 42 minutes

54 pages

Ballantine Books

Published in 1969

Oh the incredible prolificness of J.R.R. Tolkien. The man spent just a few years on The Hobbit and well over 30 more on The Lord of the Rings; most people who are avid readers know this, but the man also wrote many, many, many more legends, lays, tales, some revolving around Middle Earth, and others involving Britain in general. Smith of Wootton Major is one of those fairy tales of England stories.

The tale starts off as any fairy tale would,

There was a village once, not very long ago for those with long memories, nor very far away for those with long legs.

Tolkien's Smith begins with a quaint fairy tale quality, and maintains that relationship between the reader and the principal characters in the story throughout all 50+ pages. Much like each fairy tale, there are only a handful of characters, each one with some major, overarching trait: mysterious, trusting, hopeful, cruel, etc... Sadly, this tale feels more thrown together than anything, but considering this was towards the end of his writing career, post-LOTR, I can see why he would not want to spend the time and effort into delicately crafting a story as intricately woven as the Middle Earth saga.

Regardless, it is cute, full of elaborate parties, fantastic cakes, people from the land of Faerie, an even-star, an a few wonderful principle characters. Throughout reading, I could see how this tale could have possibly spawned a series of books telling the future quests of the even-star and the land of Faerie, but why go into all of that? Tolkien wrote it short and left it short for a reason. Truly, there is not much allegory like some people like to read into many fantasy works. You must take this book for what it is: the story of a quiet, fumbling child who grows into a lively adult through the land of Faerie. It's a story of great hopes, aspirations, loves and responsibility, a story everyone should read.


Time spent reading:
6/15: 11:02am-11:55am

Total time: 53 minutes

91 pages

Ballantine Books

Published in 1949

The first time I read Farmer Giles of Ham was at the Borders midnight release party of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I vaguely remember sitting on a stool with this book, eagerly awaiting the fourth installment of wizard mania; I remember it was an odd tale, one of a talking dog and a farmer who fell into a predicament with a dragon. Little did I know how good the story truly is.

Tolkien's studies lead him to various languages, Latin, Greek, and Anglo-Saxon; he was a linguist after all, but these languages further sent him to the specific stories told in those languages, whether it was the epic story of Beowulf or the lays of old Nordics. More than anything, Tolkien wanted to discover a true creation story of England. America had one. Even France has one! But the British? No story has ever been found. He wanted to feel that England's own creation story was as grand as others; this also was the progeny of LOTR.

We know that Farmer Giles of Ham comes to us as one possible creation of England. How? The foreword tells us! This is not some preface by some well-known modern author; it is by Tolkien himself. Farmer Giles is written as if Tolkien discovered the original text in Latin, and here it is translated for all of us to see. Tolkien writes, retells, and analyzes the tale as it is told. There are numerous instances of Tolkien switching from Latin to "the vulgar" so that we may follow along.

Farmer Giles begins as an accidental hero, a lazy sluggard who manages to shoo a giant away for a few years, and, who later discovers himself surrounded by fame and glory, grows reluctant to be heroic anymore, especially when a dragon appears on the doorsteps of Little Kingdom Ham. I found this to be quite humorous and satirical, as it seems to be the exact opposite of Beowulf. There, a proud hero emerges, one who vanquishes great monsters, dragons, and inevitably gives his life to protect others. Farmer Giles does none of these; in fact, he cowers for quite a while, making excuses as he goes, but somehow manages to come out the victor towards the end, no help from a seemingly enchanted sword...

Farmer Giles of Ham was a pleasure to reread; this time I paid more attention. It merely quenches my thirst for more things Tolkien. Watch out blogosphere, more fantasy is coming up. I'm sure of it!

Happy reading.

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Time spent reading:
6/10: 8:15am-10:15am; 11:00am-11:35am

Total time: 2 hrs 35 min

317 pages

Quirk Books

I won't lie; I really wanted this book to be outstanding. The first time I heard about it was through an email from a co-worker; from there, I knew this would either be a marvel of contemporary literature or a total wash. Sadly for me, it was the latter. Most people know my fascination with the old classics (Anna Karenina, The Count of Monte Cristo, Dracula to name a few), and also my love of well-written horror novels, specifically zombie-related ones (World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide, The Historian). As one could foretell, this should have "TRAVIS" stamped all over it. This was not the case.

The initial idea of PP&Z is a remarkable one. The land of 19th century England is overrun by the plague, not the Black Plague, but rather a plague that turns people into "unmentionables", which go on roving through the countryside searching for feasts of brains. As any worthwhile review should, I will begin with the faults. Grahame-Smith has stated that he has taken 85% of the original text and has merely included 15% of his own. What he fails to mention is that out of the 85%, only 60% is the original text. Oftentimes, the text has been reworded, restated, and paraphrased to such a point that the "original" text is left boring, often devoid of the initial meaning or flair of an Austen novel. Readers who adore Jane Austen read her because of her writing style, wit, and ability to break down social structures so that the typical high-flaunting norm doesn't remain in place. With PP&Z, readers get a watered-down Austen that is constantly surrounded by zombie-stricken England.

But not every scene is deserving of an inclusion of a plagued unmentionable. In these instances, Grahame-Smith forgoes the seemingly forced involvement of zombies and discusses the Bennet family's constant practice in martial arts, Shaolin practices, their studies of various types of hand to hand combat, and that they should be spending their day cleaning muskets and sharpening blades. While this seems quite humorous at first as Mr. Bennet states, "I would much prefer their minds be engaged in deadly arts than clouded with dreams of marriage and fortune" by the time I read "ninjas" or "Kyoto" for the umpteenth time, I grew weary of it. I never knew this should have been called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Ninjas and Anything Else to Further the Plot. It seems as if the massive plot holes in the text have been substituted by ninja fights and zombie eradication. This sounds like a good idea, but if you're trying to follow the story, (But who would really buy this book for the story?) good luck!

Don't get me wrong, Grahame-Smith does some amazing writing in the book. In the first few chapters alone, he very subtly inputs the zombie situation. There were numerous times I found myself laughing hysterically by the sheer absurdity of it all. While the bits between the zombie attacks have been so paired down that it severely mangles Austen's original text, the inclusion of zombie-related storyline at least halfway makes up for it. In this version, Elizabeth Bennet is not simply a strong-minded daughter of the poor Bennet Estate, she is also quite adept at martial arts, weaponry, and who knows what else. Instead of quietly being upset at Mr. Darcy during their first meeting at the Ball, she removes the ankle dagger and proffers to slice his throat. Fortunately for the remainder of the story, she is interrupted by a horde of zombies, of which her and her sisters quickly dispatch.

Some of the additions work quite well with the book; they do spice up the original. What better way to describe Charlotte Lucas' sudden want of marriage to Mr. Collins anything but a good Christian end?

'I don't have long Elizabeth. All I ask is that my final months be happy ones, and that I be permitted a husband who will see to my proper Christian beheading and burial.'

These instances work wonderfully, but the blandness of the rest of the text overshadows the pure genius involved. If you have never read Pride and Prejudice or you could not stand it when you tried to three summers ago, this could possibly be a great way to actually get into the work. It is sharp-witted, humorous, and very slyly done at times. But if you have read the original, and enjoy Austen, this might leave you with a sense of disdain, even if you are not a purist like myself.

Despite the great idea, awesome (and I'm not joking about this) in-book illustrations, reader's discussion guide questions, and constant flesh eating zombies, the novelty wore off fairly quick. Maybe my hopes were too high or maybe the book really did peter out towards the end...