Books Books Books

I figured I'd take today's post to talk about some books I've read recently.

I finally finished Tender is the Night at some point last week. I think it must have been Wednesday. Yes, I remember now, I finished it about two minutes before LOST started. This made it very difficult to reflect on it, since I had to change my mindset almost immediately. Thursday I started reading a new book, a very new age book called Way of the Peaceful Warrior. It took me two and a half days. Whether I liked it or not, I'll get to that later. Saturday night I started my very first romance novel called Time and Again (which is actually two novels called Time Was and Times Change smushed together). I'm only on chapter five, but...oh like before, I'll get to it later.

Tender is the Night, written by F. Scoot Fitzgerald (author of The Great Gatsby), was a book I've been wanting to read for more than four years. I really don't have any good reason why, except that it was described in a movie as being a very sentimental story that women tend to respond to (more so than Gatsby). I had really liked Gatsby, so I figured, well I'll probably really like this too. And I did. In short, Tender is the Night is the woefully poignant story of our hero turned blunderer Dr. Dick Diver, his mentally-ill wife/patient Nicole, and the young, doe-eyed actress Rosemary Hoyt. At first, Dick is a very likable man, assured in his affability and class, but eventually his regret for his reliance on Nicole and even more so for her reliance on him, leads him to make mistake after mistake until ultimately his marriage turns completely on its head. It is a very heartbreaking story, but not so much that I was moved to more than a few seconds of misty eyes. This fact in a way makes it even more heartbreaking, because the once so loveable character has almost lost all appeal to the reader, and this tragic realization makes you love him again. Common themes in the book are honor, resentment, desire, and the effects of a father-daughter relationship (especially when applied in would-be romantic relationship). I really enjoyed the style of writing that Fitzgerald uses, even though it isn't necessarily sequential. He had a way of making us love the characters at their highest point, then showing us how they got there, and then showing us the fall. On the whole, I really enjoyed the story, the writing, the characters, everything about it and hope to read it again in the future.

The next book I read was called Way of the Peaceful Warrior, by Dan Millman. I picked this book up because I saw a preview for the movie they are making that was based on it called Peaceful Warrior, and it looks really good (sidenote: the main character was a gymnast so to me it looked REALLY REALLY good). The book wasn't exactly what I expected. First of all, when I looked for it in Barnes and Noble, I wasn't expecting to have to go to the New Age section to find it. But I read it, and as a story, it was a very good one. I guess my disappointment comes from this: After I bought it and read some of the jacket notes, I was hoping to feel the same way...i.e. "Your book made a deep impression on me...I felt as though someone had just slapped my face and woke me up." or "Hard to find words to explain the experience. It helped me find an inner peace stronger than I've ever known." So...yeah. I didn't feel slapped in the face, woken up, or an inner peace I've never known. I did like a lot of the lessons in the book and everything, but what happenes to the guy in this story relies heavily on an old man, constantly on his case, and feeding him with energy and giving him, shall I say, vision-quest-like experiences. Now, I understand that perhaps that was all supposed to be metaphor or symbolism, because honestly, I don't have an old man sending me on vision quests. The problem is, my next move would be to say, "yes, it had a lot of good lessons to learn, great philosophies to follow, realities to realize. I get it." But if I say I get it, I suppose I now feel slapped in the face, since every time the main character tried to say he "got it," he was told by the old man that he was a jack-ass and he got nothing. He had to endure practically ten years of lessons from him. ... Well I read the book in two and a half days. Am I allowed to say "I get it?" I just don't know. And that's my problem. Other than that, pretty good book.

Right now, I am reading Time and Again by Nora Roberts. This is the first Nora Roberts book I've ever read (my mother and two friends Mel and Liddy love them) and the first romance novel I've ever read. I was attracted to this story because it involved time travel and interesting characters (from what I could read on the jacket). I'm enjoying the plot so far. My one qualm is that I really don't need for the man's or the woman's desire for the other to be described EVERY OTHER paragraph. Here, I can clearly say "I GET IT." Other than that, its quirky, and fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Hundred bucks says they DO IT.