Winter of the World: The Second World War

It wasn’t until after I finished reading Winter of the World by Ken Follett, that I realized how many historical novels I have read this year, specifically ones about World War II (see here and here). Winter of the World is the second book in Follett’s Century Trilogy. I read the first book, Fall of Giants, earlier this year, and I really enjoyed returning to the series. I have always been interested in the World War II era ever since I was little, and I still find it to be a really interesting time in history.

The Century Trilogy, much like Follett’s Pillars of the Earth series, follows multiple interconnected families through the 20th century. These characters were established in Fall of Giants, and are picked up again a few years later. Winter of the World follows the younger generation, which gives the book a more of a youthful feel to it, but as always the story is grounded in history. Follett meticulously places his characters where they need to be to hit all the major historical events of the time. The first book established characters in the UK, Germany, the US, and the Soviet Union, which sets Follett up to easily sail through the 20th century. On a more detailed level Follett has a variety of characters, from government officials, to international spies, and from the rich to the poor, so that his reader gets as flushed out a picture of the era as he can give them.

One of Follett’s greatest strengths as a writer is his ability to give characters depth and variety. Each one of the people in his book has their own story, their own motives, and their own individual personality. As always, he is especially adept at writing particularly strong female characters, which I always enjoy. I find that at times his books can get to be a bit soap-opera-y, and that those element of the story can be overdone sometimes, but at the same time, the soap opera parts break up the political turmoil that the book is based on. It also gives his readers a more flushed out story by adding a personal element into the mix. I wasn’t blown away by his writing style, but Follett certainly knows how to write a good story and how to keep the suspense going.

I did notice that in this book there was a darker streak running through the text as compared to the first book in the series. Follett is definitely not afraid to put his characters through turmoil and have them deal with the outcome of said turmoil. At first I was surprised by the darker parts of the novel, especially after reading many of his other books, but I feel like the darker streak is expected when one considers the time period that he is writing about. Not only is he writing about a world war, he is writing about the second world ward that most of these characters have seen in their lives – and none of his characters are very old. That, and the specific facts of history: the fear of fascism and communism, and the terror that the Nazis inflicted on Germany and on the world during this time, justifies Follett’s darker streak in my mind.

Follett also does a good job of setting the scene for his third book, Edge of Eternity, which picks up where Winter of the World left off, and follows the next generation through the Cold War era. He introduces many of the prevalent issues of the time: specifically the power struggle between the Soviet Union and the US, the rush for nuclear weapons, and the fear that there would be yet another world war, all of which were concerns at the end of World War II. After finishing this book, I am in the mood to delve into his third book, but unfortunately I will have to wait until September 2014…

What Makes Things Tip?

The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell has been on my radar for a few years now, but I never really had the chance to sit down and read it. I also tend to lean towards fiction more  than non-fiction when reading on my own. So this particular had been sitting on the back burner until I pulled it off the bookshelf last week and decided that it was time to see what it was about.

In The Tipping Point, journalist Malcom Gladwell explores what makes things popular. How do trends start and spread to the general public? Gladwell looks into a few fads and movements that were successful over the years – everything from Paul Revere’s famous ride, to Sesame Street, to lowering the crime rate in 1980’s New York City, to Airwalk sneakers. What Gladwell wants to know in his book is what made these movements or epidemics a success?

Gladwell methodically takes his reader through his thought process. He lays out the three important factors of an epidemic, which he calls The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor, and The Power of Context. In other words Gladwell looks into the people that make a trend happen, what about the trend makes it popular, and the trend in its greater context. Each of these elements makes up a chapter of the book, and is supported by empirical evidence.

Gladwell looks into a variety of psychological and social experiments that were conducted over the years. But he does more than pile on the statistics and technical jargon; instead he creates a story from the research set before him. Gladwell describes the characters that he interviewed. He tells the reader what they were wearing, what they said, how they presented themselves, or how they laughed. Not only does this make the book more readable, it also makes the study or interview come to life in a way that pure statistics and results could not.

Gladwell sets out to show how a trend becomes big, but in the process he does a lot of analysis on human nature. After all, when someone wants their product to become big they are aiming it at a certain type of person, or at the general public as a whole. Therefore, it is essential to look at what motivates us, what interests us, and what affects us on a day to day basis. Many of the studies Gladwell references, such as the 1970’s prison experiment, I have read about in my various Psychology classes, but it was interesting to revisit them in a different context.

As I said before, Gladwell does not limit himself in terms of the examples he uses to explore fads and epidemics. Therefore the experiments that he references are equally varied in topic, ranging from Developmental to Social Psychology. Gladwell proves himself to be a man that is genuinely interested in the human condition.

All in all, Gladwell has put together a fairly comprehensive and entertaining study of trends, fads, epidemics, and the people that bring them into existence.

 

Caleb’s Crossing: A Glimpse of Martha’s Vineyard in the 1600’s

Well this week has proven to be sufficiently busy for me. But in all the craziness I did manage to find the time to finish my book, Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks. I bought Caleb’s Crossing on Martha’s Vineyard a few years ago, and it has been sitting on my shelf ever since.

I came across it late last Friday night, the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, when I was looking for a good book to curl up with in the cold. (It seemed more like Columbus Day weekend with all the rain and the cold than the beginning of summer, but the weather this week has made up for it).

Caleb’s Crossing proved to be an excellent curl-up-by-the fire book. Set on Martha’s Vineyard in the 1600’s, Caleb’s Crossing tells the story of a young girl Puritan girl named Berthia Mayfield, who comes across a young Wampanoag Native American boy. She and this boy, who she later calls Caleb, strike up a strong friendship that lasts throughout the book. Caleb, who is inducted into Puritan society, ends up being the first  Native American to graduate from Harvard. The novel is based on a true story, and tracks Berthia and Caleb’s journey through the years.

This is not what I would call an action packed book, but it is well written, and tells a good story. From the beginning of the novel, Berthia makes the point that she is not the average well mannered Puritan woman that her mother is, and that is the ideal for the society she grows up in. At a young age Berthia began listening in on her older brother’s school lessons that she was not privy to herself. It is clear that she has more interest in education and schooling than her brother does, and furthering her knowledge proves to be a driving force behind her decisions throughout the book.

I particularly enjoyed this novel for its descriptions of Martha’s Vineyard, which is a place I know well. Even in pre-Revolutionary America Martha’s Vineyard acted as a get away from mainland life. Berthia’s grandfather moved there from The Massachusetts Bay Colony when he had a disagreement about the ways of life with the other members in the colony. Even in the strict Puritan days, the Vineyard has a more relaxed feel to it than the lifestyle of the mainland peoples. This contrast is made abundantly clear when Berthia travels to the Boston later in her life, and describes the strict practices she sees there. Her own family has a fairly rigid way of life, but Berthia is allowed more freedom because of their island lifestyle than she would be as a young woman growing up elsewhere in the colonies at this time.

Berthia clearly loves Martha’s Vineyard has a close connection to the island which becomes stronger when she is introduced to Caleb and the Native American ways of life. This introduction also has an interesting effect on her faith, which as a Puritan is a huge part of her life. At a young age she grapples with the contrast between her strict Protestant upbringing, and the freer, more nature-based practices of the Wampanoag Native Americans. The result, although she is constantly grappling with it, turns out to be a more fleshed out picture of God’s plan that she was seeing otherwise, especially in terms of the beauty of nature on the island.

As I said before, Caleb’s Crossing is not a fast paced book, but Brooks does weave suspense throughout her story. Berthia proves to be a strong character, and I enjoyed seeing how she carved a life for herself in an unconventional manner for a Puritan woman of her time. Throughout her life she chooses positions for herself that allow her to further her learning and happiness, which were not aspects of life women tended to focus on in this time period.

I thought that some of the more minor characters, such as Berthia’s mother and grandfather could have been developed more fully throughout the book, but as a whole I enjoyed reading Caleb’s Crossing. I enjoyed seeing Martha’s Vineyard, Boston, and Harvard through a different lens. As a new school in Cambridge, Harvard at this time had about 30 students who studied with private tutors in two buildings – very different than college today.

Geraldiine Brooks does a good job of transporting her reader into a world of the past of Native Americans, Puritanism and education. The contrast between English and Native American life is well depicted, and the complexities of the relationship between these two groups of people, which defined so much of American history, is looked at from multiple angles. Brooks does not stereotype this relationship, and encompasses many different views in her story.

I tend not to gravitate toward Pre-Revolutionary fiction, because I have studied that era so much in school, and was never as interested in it as I was other periods of time in American History. But, despite all this, I really enjoyed Brooks’ story, and liked seeing a world that I know so well as new and unfamiliar. All in all it was an enjoyable Memorial Day Weekend read.

My Great Gatsby

Well, The Great Gatsby movie has been out for over a week now, and I must say that I haven’t heard too many rave reviews. What I have heard about it is a mixed bag. While I have heard that the casting was well done, I have also  heard that the movie is simply over the top and does not stay true to the original novel in ways that  viewers were hoping for.

People seem to have one of two opinions on The Great Gatsby. Either they love it or they hate it – I have not seen much in between. Gatsby was one of my favorite books that I read in tenth grade, and I reread it over the summer in college. In my rereading, I did find the descriptions to be somewhat over the top – more so than I had remembered – but that did not change my opinion of the book too much, and I still enjoyed it.

I think maybe the reason why I enjoyed it so much was because it was such a visual read. Fitzgerald really emphasizes description, setting, and colors in his writing, and while that did slow down the narrative at times, it gave me a very specific image of Nick Carraway’s world, and his opinions on that world.

What’s more is that I feel like I have been there myself. The story is set in the imaginary Long Island town of West Egg and New York City. Long Island is one of my favorite places, and I know it well as I have been going there since I was little. I also grew up in New York, so both of these locations are familiar old haunts of mine.

I feel like it is pretentious to say that The Great Gatsby hits close to home for me, because that is not true. I do not live the extravagant life of Jay Gatsby in a disillusioned Jazz Age like era – thankfully I am much more low key than that. That is not what is familiar to me while reading The Great Gatsby. Instead it’s the settings themselves, not the people, that stick with me the most when reading this book.

When I imagine the setting, I think of the air and the light of Long Island in the summer and even some of the specific places on the island. I picture the famous glasses billboard and The Valley of Ashes to be somewhere on the L.I.E. Many years ago when I was little, there was a fire off of the highway that we could see in the distance from our kitchen window. We passed the remains of burned trees for a long time after that while traveling back and forth to the city. For me, that is where the billboard and the gas station are in Gatsby.

Even though the last time I read Gatsby was a few years ago now, there are still certain scenes that stick out to me when thinking about the book. The city, of course, is easy for me to imagine, although it is a different New York than the one I live in now. Another scene I have constructed for myself is where Daisy is introduced for the first time in a whirlwind of breezes and white. I don’t know if, for me, this is based on any specific house I have been to in my life, but I feel like I can imagine what it would be very well. And Gatsby’s parties I imagine to be on one specific lawn that leads down to the water.

I remember watching a scene from the old Great Gatsby movie with Robert Redford while reading the book in school, and even then the settings in the movie interrupted the setting I had built for myself in my head. I can only imagine what seeing the glitzy 3D Gatsby film would do to my personal Gatsby world.

I also have some issues with the way the film was approached. I have heard that the soundtrack is done by modern artists such as Lana Del Rey and and Jay-Z. According to director Baz Lurhmann, he was looking to modernize Gatsby to today’s audience. In an interview, Lurhmann says,

While we acknowledge, as Fitzgerald phrased it, ‘the Jazz Age,’ and this is the period represented on screen, we—our audience—are living in the ‘hip-hop age’ and want our viewers to feel the impact of modern-day music the way Fitzgerald did for the readers of his novel at the time of its publication.

Who knows, maybe 100 years from now people will look back on 2013 and call it ‘the hip hop age’, but I personally don’t think that we are in ‘the hip hop age’ in the way that the 1920’s was The Jazz Age. And while I am all for statements on the impact of music on today’s generation, I don’t know if The Great Gatsby is the place to do that. I personally would have liked to see more of the Jazz Age, since that is an era we do not see on a daily basis, or when we turn on the radio.

Also, the narration of the movie comes from Nick Carroway years later in a sanitarium where he is a recovering alcoholic. In my opinion, that is a nice “what-if” situation that certainty fits in with the turn of events from the 1920’s to the 1930’s. But I am not 100% sold on the idea. There also must be a more subtle way to fit in lines of Fitzgerald’s text other than physically writing them out on the screen. I have also heard that there are many subtleties to the book that get lost, or overly exposed in the film. But then again I have not seen the movie, so I don’t feel like I can comment on that element of the film as much.

Yes, The Great Gatsby is known for its elaborately descriptive writing, so it makes sense that an elaborate movie would come from the novel, but I think I am going to stick with my own personal scenes that are now etched in my mind, thank you very much. Each reader has a different idea of what the inner world of a book looks like, which is a great thing! I would hate to see my personal inner of Gatsby wither away to be replaced by hip hop and 3D golden glitz. I can find that elsewhere.

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Everyone Should Read The Book Thief

I hope everyone has had a happy Easter Weekend! I spent my weekend relaxing, knitting, and reading. I also finished The Book Thief, which I have been reading for the past few weeks or so. I mentioned at the end of an earlier post that I would make everyone I know read this book, and I am making sure to keep up my end of the bargain…with myself…

Every now and again you come across a writer who, while you are reading their work, makes you put down the book and just process what you just saw. Sometimes it is because the author’s prose are just so well done and beautifully written. Sometimes it is because the imagery is really well done, and sometimes it is both. With The Book Thief it was both. I have mentioned a few other novelists that I put on my imaginary list of just really good writing. Barbara Kingsolver, and Erin Morgenstern are on the list, as well as Billy Collins, who I have been obsessed with since high school.  And now I have added Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief, to the list.

Markus Zusak looks at the world in a very unique way, and it comes across strongly in his writing. At first his style reminded me of Morgenstern’s because of his strong imagery in the book, but soon after that I saw that this was in fact his own unique style. The Book Thief tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a young German girl growing up in World War II, who is sent to live with a foster family at the age of 9. The Book Theif tells the story of her life, living in rural Germany, dealing with her younger brother’s death, learning to read from books that she stole, and her friendship with her adopted parents, Rudy Steiner, and the Jewish man that comes to live in her basement.

Zuzak does an excellent job of capturing both the innocence and maturity of being 9 years old, especially when growing up during World War II is taken into account. Yes, The Book Thief is considered to be a Young Adult novel, because of Liesel’s age throughout the story, but Zusak approaches his subject matter in a very mature, matter-of-fact fashion. He does not shy away from dark, or serious subject matter, but instead talks about it through beautiful imagery and storytelling.

One of the more amazing things about the book was the narrator. The narration is primarily focused on Liesel, but the narrator is his own separate character; Zusak makes Death the narrator of his book. At first, to me, I thought it was some Nazi soldier, but the narration quickly becomes too overarching for it to be one human being. Death, however, has his own opinions, his own characteristics, and even his own humor. The Book Thief is a dark book, but it is not without hope, or humor (at times). In an interview, Zusak talks about his decision to make Death the narrator of his book. He says,

Everyone says war and death are best friends. Death is every present during war…but this time, Death was to be exhausted from his eternal existence and his job. He was to be afraid of humans – because, after all, he was there to see the obliteration we’ve perpetrated on each other throughout the ages – and he would now be telling this story to prove to himself that humans are actually worth it.

I thought that was a beautiful way of putting it, and I definitely saw what Zusak was talking about throughout his story. I fell in love with all the characters very quickly, even Liesel’s stern stepmother, and it is clear that the narrator feels the same way.

Zusak did some interesting things in the telling of this story. Since Death is the narrator, and is somewhat outside of time, he often told us the fate of a character soon after we met him. This is a tricky tactic to use well while still keeping the suspense, and the flow of the story moving forward, but I did not feel that there was a lack of either of these things. It was interesting to see how Death wove himself in and out of the story.

I was surprised to see that this book came out in 2005, and I hadn’t heard about it until more recently – in the past year or so. But, I am glad that it has gotten as big as it has recently, because it is definitely worth it. I also saw that there is a movie of the book coming out in 2014 with Geoffrey Rush. There isn’t too much information out about it yet, but I could see how it would lend itself well to a movie with all the imagery and strong characters that it has. The Book Thief is one of those stories that I cannot fully explain without going on and on, so I just recommend that you read it. It’s good.

Reached: The Final Installment

Earlier today I finished reading Ally Condie’s third book, Reached. (Click here for my Crossed and Matched reviews)

Reached begins with The Rising, the event that has been anticipated since the beginning of the series, really. Literary dystopian societies are made to fall apart – it is how this happens where the story comes in.

In Reached, The Society falls apart through the outbreak of a virus called The Plague. Patients get sick and feverish and eventually “go still”. The Society, which has control over everything, cannot control this new virus, and The Rising steps in to take its place. Cassia, Ky, and even Xander have important roles to play in The Rising.

Eventually The Plague is under control and everything seems to be going well, until The Plague mutates and The Rising is left to deal with the consequences.

It is said that a character never truly gets what they want, and if they do it is never quite what it seems. In my opinion, although it may be overdone, a dystopian novel is an excellent example of how this plays out within a story.

Reached adds on to where Crossed left off both in plot development and narration. The chapters alternate between Cassia, Ky, and now Xander. Xander proves to be an interesting character, and not the Society square perfect boy that he was made out to be in Matched. Each character has their own point of view when it comes to the events in The Rising, although sometimes the narration can be very similar.

Condie does a good job of tying up the loose ends of the first two books by bringing everything together in this final installment. However, I did find it to be a bit long, and to drag on in places. I definitely thought it could be edited down, or that some of the plot elements could have been brought up in Crossed to not overload the final book. There were a few details I would like to know more about, however, like what happened to the original Markham boy. That plot line was pretty much left open.

That being said, the characters do develop quite a bit between Matched and Crossed, each in their own way. Cassia really delves into creation through poetry and the arts. I really enjoyed the way that this played out in the story. The Society does not like the concept of creating things, and they have tackled that full heartedly. Cassia is a sorter, and an excellent sorter at that. She can make sense of senseless numbers, and can see where things need to go to make order. She is a perfect for The Society’s needs. But ever since she met Ky back in the first book, she has been interested in more than just sorting, she has wanted to create. Whether it is writing her name in dirt with a stick, reading poetry, or creating a Gallery for people to express their talents, Cassia has always been interested in the idea of creation, especially since The Society is so against it.

The concept of the love triangle between Cassia, Xander, and Ky does continue to exist, but each character has a life beyond the love triangle, which makes for more enjoyable and realistic characters. Each has something to live for. This also makes the plot better, and more suspenseful overall. If anything, the love triangle drives each character’s actions towards The Rising and The Plague, which in turn drives those narratives forward. They are all involved in something bigger than themselves, and they are all very aware of this fact.

It is hard to keep a story going through multiple books, and in my opinion, Matched is probably the strongest book. That being said I did enjoy where Condie brought the story in the end, and I think that there are many good ideas and concepts within the books. It has proved itself to be more than just a flighty love triangle book of teenage angst.

Crossed: The Saga Continues

To see my post about Matched, click here.

Crossed by Ally Condie is the second book in the Matched Trilogy. That being said, there will be spoilers in this review.

Matched ended with Ky being taken away from The Society due to a sort that Cassia has performed at his work. Cassia so far has been set up as an ideal candidate for society, in a way. She has a sorter’s brain, and can look at a set of data and put it in order, but at the same time she wants more than that. She wants to create, learn, write etc. In Crossed, Cassia seizes the opportunity to escape from Society life, and to go find Ky herself.

Crossed takes place in the Outer Provinces and the Canyon where The Society does not have as strong a hold on its people. Ky is sent to fight the elusive “Enemy”, and Cassia sets out to find him. On her journey she teams up with some Aberrations, or individuals that The Society set aside, like Ky. She also has a chance to learn more about the history behind The Society, Aberrations, and The Rising which plans to overturn The Society. Joining the rising soon becomes Cassia’s driving force in life, and she will have to figure out what she is willing to give up to get there.

I would say that there is less action in Crossed compared to Matched, maybe because of the solitary setting of the Carving compared to that of The Society. That being said, it is still a good read, and Condie really digs into character background and motivations, which I enjoyed. While Matched was narrated solely by Cassia, Crossed has alternating chapters between Cassia and Ky. I have enjoyed books with alternating chapters before, but I am While I do find alternating chapters to be jarring at times – you’ve just gotten back into one character’s mindset before you switch to another, I did enjoy seeing Ky from another angle. He is portrayed as such a mysterious character in Matched, that I enjoyed learning more about him first hand rather than through Cassia’s narration. I found his motivations to be really interesting, especially in terms of his opinions on The Rising.

As I said in my post about Matched, dystopian novels always end with the society falling apart – it is the how and why of the matter that is interesting. I would say that Condie has done a good job in Crossed of setting up a finale. Both Cassia and Ky grow as characters and learn about their environment and history in ways that they could not have done in the first book. The love triangle, once again, is also used as more of a subtle driving force that connects Cassia, Xander, and Ky together, although I saw more “Team Xander” and “Team Ky” material in Crossed as compared to Matched. Or rather Xander has the potential for being a more interesting and well rounded character than he was first thought to be in Matched. I guess what I am trying to say is that there are other things going on in each person’s life beyond the love triangle, which I always find to be refreshing. This also makes for a more multi-dimensional read. Still curious as to what will be after the love triangle fad though.

I’m reading Reached now – review to come. So far it’s pretty good…

Matched, Dystopia, and the Infamous Love Triangle

I feel like I am in an interesting situation in terms of my reading preferences. I read lots of young adult books, and love the genre, but at the same time I tend to stay away from the overall themes of said genre. When bookstores set up tables of “If You Like Harry Potter Read This” and “Books Like The Hunger Games” I tend not to be too interested. I am a huge Harry Potter fan, and I love The Hunger Games. I even read some Twilight. But I never really got into the other “boy wizard” books or other paranormal fantasies that were out there. And now everything is dystopian.

I started reading Divergent a couple of months ago, but I felt like I had to put it down because the world wasn’t real enough for me. I couldn’t see how people lived like that. I understand that that is the point of a dystopian novel – an overpowering society that ultimately falls apart in the end, but I just couldn’t buy it for that book. So I had my doubts about Matched as well.

I bought Matched one day where I was at the bookstore and didn’t know what I wanted to get. The paperback edition had just come out, and it wasn’t too expensive. I had also heard a lot about this book from colleagues and the internet, and I figured it was something I should probably read so that I could have an opinion on it. If I hated it, oh well, not much would change.

I also might add that I am very cynical about the whole love triangle situation that seems to be a staple in Young Adult fiction right now. (I’m blaming Twilight for that one). I have talked before about how I like strong female protagonists who can stand on their own two feet, and love triangles do not always lend themselves to such characters. So I had my doubts going in, but I wanted to read something light and fun after the two dense historical novels that I have been reading.

A little background on Matched: Cassia lives in a world where The Society makes choices for her. She goes to school, works as a sorter, and either listens to music, plays games, or watches a movie in her free time with her friends. Most importantly, The Society chooses who she marries through the Matching Ceremony that every seventeen year old attends. It is the highlight of The Society’s success. Cassia is happy to be matched with her best friend Xander, but when she goes home to look at the microchip with Xander’s information on it, another boy’s face pops up instead.

There you go. Classic love triangle. I found some of the love triangle plot to be pretty predictable, but at the same time there were other twists in the plot that kept me reading. I was happy to see that the love triangle is not necessarily the main focus of the book, but rather an avenue that allows other themes and issues to appear. Since it is dystopian, it is pretty clear that The Society is going to come apart, but the questions are how and why? The author, Ally Condie, uses the love triangle to introduce the idea of choice into Cassia’s life – something that she has never had before. I was more interested in seeing how Cassia deals with this idea of choice, and overcomes the obstacles The Society throws in her way, more than I was in Team Xander or Team Ky.

The dystopian society was more akin to The Giver than it was to The Hunger Games, I thought. Condie still did manage to make it her own though, which can be hard with such a formulaic and saturated topic.

Songs and poetry also play a pretty important role in the book. The Society has the 100 Songs, 100 Paintings, and 100 Stories that are stamped with The Society seal of approval and remembered through the generations. Cassia has an interest in poetry and the idea of creation – she has always had things handed to her, never created anything herself. I liked how poetry was used to fuel creation. Yay literature!

Matched is a pretty quick read – I think I finished it in about 2 days (started it at night). There were times where I thought that some ideas could be implied more than stated in writing to make the book a little more subtle, but by stating things outright Condie can reach out to a younger reader demographic without alienating older readers. YA after all, is targeted at younger readers, despite the fact that it’s readers are 50/50 teens and adults. Maybe that’s why I find the genre to be so interesting.

Anyway, I am now on the third book in the Matched trilogy, reviews to come, and overall I have been pleasantly surprised by the series. It is a fun read. That being said, I am still looking forward to the day where having a love triangle in the plot is no longer a requirement for Young Adult fiction. What will be next?

Time Travel: Choose Your Own Adventure

Today I will not be talking about the popular Choose Your Own Adventure Series from back in the day. Instead I am talking about Stephen King. Now, I have never read a Stephen King novel before. This is mainly because I don’t really enjoy the whole thriller/horror genre, and I like to be able to get to sleep at night. But when a friend pointed out to me that King’s latest book 11/22/63 deals with time travel, and I am writing a story that deals with time travel, I figured I should check it out. I particularly wanted to see how he constructs time travel in the novel, how his characters deal with it etc. For research purposes. I am charting unknown territory here. After all, Wilson Mizner, an American playwright, said

If you steal from one author, its plagiarism; if you steal from many, its research.

So in my literary travels I might be keeping an eye out for time travel books. I still like variety in my reading habits, and if I read too much of one thing I need a break, but every now and again I might throw some time travel in there to keep me on top of things.

Anyway, back to the book. The premise of King’s novel revolves around a plan to go back in time to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing JFK in Texas on November 22, 1963. King’s protagonist, Jake Epping is sent on a mission by his colleague, Al to travel through a wormhole in Al’s store room that drops him off in the summer of 1958. Epping’s mission is to take a new identity and stop the JFK assassination. Through the butterfly effect: the idea that changing one event can alter many others, Al and Jake plan to save the world. I am interested that King chose this moment in history to change – it is definitely a big one, but his explaination behind it left me wanting to know more.

Now, I feel like I should put a disclaimer that I have not finished this book yet. I have not been reviewing the few books that I haven’t finished since starting this blog. But I do want to discuss this one, even though I am only about 300 pages in – as I said, it is a long book. It is relevant, after all to my story idea, and it is an interesting read, although at times it can be over written. I have been enjoying it, and am planning to finish it, but it is a very dense, long historical book, and I just finished another good dense, long historical book. As I said before – I like variety in my reading selections. So I am planning on returning to this book in the near future after reading some fun YA.

I knew that Stephen King is well known in his genre of horror and triller novels, but I did not know that he had branched out beyond that theme as well. Although 11/22/63 has some very dark and haunting elements to it that echo King’s genre, I would not say that it falls into the same category as most of his other books. He has also written a book On Writing, which looks interesting. I was impressed by King’s writing style – genre fiction tends to be popular for the plot as opposed to the writing style, but then again it is Stephen King we are talking about here. And 11/22/63 is considered to be more literary science fiction. I pictured the opening scene of 11/22/63 being studied in literary or writing classes – all the key elements are there in just a few pages. We learn about the protagonist, we see his motivation that drives him through the rest of the story emerge, and we get his backstory. And bam we are in the middle of the story.

So as I said earlier in the post, I read this to see how King wrote time travel. Right from the start I could tell that it was not the same route that I was taking with the subject. Jake Epping goes through a portal/wormhole, while my characters have a belt that does the work for them. This means, that since Jake was dropped off in 1958, he has some time to kill before saving Kennedy in 1963. It is in this portion of the novel that Jake makes his mission personal. He has some of his own business to deal with, and takes it upon himself to save the family of one of his students from a brutal murder. This gives Jake a sense of motivation, but this also develops into a bit of a hero complex later in the story. It also makes the book very long.

Another difference that I saw, and that King emphasized in his book, was that every time Jake entered 1958 through the portal it was a do over. Everything he or anyone else had managed to change in the past was erased, and he would have to do it again. This meant that King had to rewrite scenes that the reader had previously read. In my opinion, he did a good job of writing a scene from an alternative POV, which is an interesting challenge within itself. That is something I am going to keep an eye out for as I continue the book. King also does a good job of creating a world that no longer exists, a world where Jake can no longer use his cell phone, and  has to use different money. This was especially interesting after reading Fall of Giants, which also set up a world that doesn’t exist anymore, but on a much more global scale. King nailed down the small rural town feel of the late ’50’s, and really invested in his characters from the past. The setting has a sense of hyper reality to  it that makes the past seem familiar whether a reader has read through it or not.

I was thinking about this the other day – time travel is a subject that has been seen in tv shows and novels again and again, but there is no one way of doing it. I am not saying that there should be, instead I am saying the opposite. It makes the research and creation process more interesting, at least for me, with all the different options there are out there. The idea of time travel itself is cannon, but the rules stop there. You can do whatever you want – you can choose your own adventure. Some travel around in a little blue box, while others walk through a wormhole, and still others fly through space in a car from the ’80’s. Some even stay in Neverland. But it’s all time travel in its own right. Just as long as everything fits together within the realms of the story.  I know I’m writing about World War I, but I’m excited to see how I get there and what happens while I’m there.

Tackling World War I: Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

Last night I finished reading Ken Follett’s Fall of Giants before going to bed. I devoured his book Pillars of the Earth a few years ago over a winter break, and have had my eye on this book ever since. I have always been interested in 20th century history, and I am looking forward to seeing what he does in the next two books of his trilogy.  I was also  particularly interested in this book now because I wanted to see how an author approaches and writes about such a monstrous topic as World War I, since I might be dealing with that era in my story that I have mentioned before. (Side note – the scene that I have in that post looks very different now, and will probably look very different in the future as well). I have not studied or looked into World War I in detail since studying it in History class in high school, and I was looking forward to revisiting that era, and to see what Ken Follett did as a writer to transport his reader to the early 20th century. i also want to read his second book, Winter of the World, which came out this September.

Fall of Giants follows the story of a number of Europeans at the beginning of the 20th century. Follett’s style when it comes to historical novels is to create a number of fictional families and follow their heritage through the years. He focuses specifically on Britain, Germany, Russia, and American characters, which will easily take him right through to the end of the 20th century.

As I said before, I was particularly paying attention to the way that Follett talked about, and recreated World War I. Fall of Giants in quite the tome of a book, and Follett makes sure to at least touch on every element of a most internationally complex era. I learned things about World War I that I had not known before, and although I am not a history buff I do enjoy the subject. I cannot imagine the research that went into writing this book.

What makes Follett’s world so real is the detail and personable characters that he puts into it. Follett has a variety of characters ranging from wealthy Brits and Americans to servants, coal miners, and Russian activists. Through these characters he can give his readers a first hand look into the complication of events leading up to the war,  The Battle of the Somme, The Russian Revolution, Woodrow Wilson’s White House, or the Paris Peace Conference. It wouldn’t surprise me if Fall of Giants was the most comprehensive historical novel of the early 1900’s out there today. The international atmosphere of the early 1900’s is highlighted from the beginning of the book through wealthy multinational dinner parties in fancy manor houses where international politics are the main conversation topic. After all, most of the monarchs of Europe at this time were all cousins, and descendants from Queen Victoria. Follett discusses this fact verbatim, but also mirrors this international intimacy through the relationships of his characters, and their alternating viewpoints and plot lines. All the characters keep on running into one another whether it is on the streets of London or in the battlefield, which gives the reader the sense that although the world is at war, it is a very small world to begin with. The relationships between the characters also lighten the tone of this highly political novel, making it two parts international politics, one part soap opera drama.

I thought that at times the pacing of the novel could be changed, although of course that is difficult to deal with when the novel is based so firmly in historical events. In terms of the battle scenes, Follett writes it so that almost every male character goes off to war at the same time and then comes home at the same time as well. This makes certain sections of the novel saturated with either war or home life, and could make the reader question the likelihood of this happening – that every male character would be on the exact same schedule. It also made the scenes of war after their respective times at home seem slow. Of course, there was an inordinate amount of fighting during World War I, but I would have liked to see some fighting interspersed with some home life rather than everyone being in the same place at once.

Despite that small detail, I really enjoyed The Fall of Giants, and am hugely impressed with what Ken Follett has managed to put together. He has also set himself up nicely for Winter of the World by introducing the problems that lead into World War II at the end of the novel. If you view Fall of Giants as a highly politicized fictional story of the era, and Downton Abbey as a much more domestic fictional story of the era, I am aiming for my story line (the parts of it that do take place in the early 20th century that is) to be somewhere in the middle – hopefully. Still, I am very glad to have read this novel, both from a research point of view and one of just looking for a good book to read. I highly recommend it to history buffs and readers a like, and I am looking forward to seeing how Ken Follett recreates the rest of the 20th century.