The Time Traveler's Wife; Audrey Niffenegger

I haven't found a book on this BBC list yet that I wouldn't consider good, in at least one way. I don't have problems with them in regards to an interesting story, plot holes, characterizations, etc. This one isn't some sort of exception. It is well-written, definitely. Niffenegger's conception of time-travel is interesting and novel. Her two main characters are a study in people dealing/accepting weird situations. The whole world constructed within her novel is excellent because it is on the very cusp of ours; and she makes her reader believe this could be possible, and that in the not-very-distant future, we will find out that hers is indeed the world we are inhabiting.

I liked it. Very much, as evidenced by the fact that I read it within the confines of a 24-hour period. That's not that impressive for me. It was 537 pages, give or take, with big print. It doesn't look that daunting from the outside, and its a quick read so, if you've been thinking about giving it a go, I've heard the movie is crap compared and I'm telling you now that it's worthwhile.

Here is the part where you should stop reading if you are intending, at any time in the future, to read this book and you care about spoilers. I shall even insert a picture to make sure that if you don't want to see what comes next, it's only your fault if you do. (The picture, by the way, is from our tour group waiting in the airport in Germany to get to Thessaloniki. I've been scrapbooking!) You can come back and read the end of this post after you've read the book, if you're that interested.

And here it is. I don't ask a lot from books. I'm not what most people would call picky when it comes to the kind of "literature" I read. Give me an interesting plot. Give me memorable and hopefully, at least at times, virtuous characters. Give me some sort of a take-home message, even if it's something as benign as, "Life is short; live it while you can." Not that that message is really benign, per say, but you do tend to hear it a lot. At least I do, and that's kind of sad because I'm still working a desk job and not, for instance, writing a novel or saving the world.

And this novel does have good characters. The plot is fascinating and heartrending. The message is BEAUTIFUL; and has to do a lot with not taking for granted what you have, and living in the moment and loving. LOVING!

But what I ask in my reading material, most of all, more than anything, is for a happy ending. I don't even care if it's trite (which is a "fault" many have found in the Harry Potter series epilogue; I loved it. All I'd really like to know is what all of them do for a living now. Especially Harry, but I can live with not knowing, because I know that they are happy, and relatively safe.)

Which is the point. Not only did the ending of that book make me cry, they were not happy tears. They were not tears of rejoicing with the characters I had come to love over the last 500 pages. They were sadness and grief and horror pouring out of me.

Some people can find beauty there, but I just get upset and have to sort of mope through my other activities for a while. So that was the fault I found with the book. I didn't like the end. So that's not too bad in the grand scale of things. Maybe you'd be able to deal with it, at least better than I do/did.

I guess I figure that life has very few happy endings and authors have no excuse because their worlds are their own construction and are not bound by the rules of ours.

Anyways, on to some Shakespeare now.

War and Peace; Leo Tolstoy

It seems so ... familiar to call him Leo, but as that is what is on the cover of the book, I sort of feel like I need to go with it. I would prefer to call him Leopold or Leonardo, but as far as I know, he's just called Leo.

Wow, War and Peace. First of all more than anything, if you are going to read this book, at any time in your life, for the love of all that is good, do not read the back of the book. At least not if you have the Barnes and Nobles Classics addition. I don't know what the deal is, but I guess that because this is a really famous book, whoever writes those thinks oh, everybody knows what's going to happen. Look-- I may be reading this book for the wrong reasons, because I am interested in the plot, but you putting on there what is going to happen, really angers me.

I'm not sure how lucid I just was, but I was really angry about learning what I did off the back of that book.

That being said, I was angry because this book was fantastic. It was entrancing. I loved loved loved so many of his characters. The way Tolstoy takes historical events from Europe and Russia and works in his ideas and these characters is superb.

There are slow parts, at least for me. Sometimes I had a hard time paying attention, especially when he's detailing parts of campaigns, and the last part of the epilogue was incredibly philosophical (yet interesting).

The problem with this book is the size. Everyone looks at this tome and thinks, "there's no way I'm going to be able to finish that." It's just daunting. But it is worthwhile.

Also, it is really interesting to follow Tolstoy's patriotism.

But I loved this book, even if it did take me a MONTH to read it, and I think I will read it again and I have no doubt that I'm going to get even more out of it next time.

Some Quotes I Liked:
"No, to kill a man is bad, wrong..."
"Why is it wrong?" repeated Prince Andrey; "what's right and wrong is a question it has not been given to men to decide. Men are for ever in error, and always will be in error, and in nothing more than in what they regard as right and wrong."

"But you know what they say," he said, "that war is like a game of chess."
"Yes," said Prince Andrey, "only with this little difference, that in chess you may think over each move as long as you please, that you are not limited as to time, and with this further difference that a knight is always stronger than a pawn and two pawns are always stronger than one, while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division, and sometimes weaker than a company. No one can ever be certain of the relative strength of made by the staff, I would be there, and helping to make them, but instead of that I have the honour of serving here in the regiment with these gentelmen here, and I consider that the day really depends upon us to-morrow and not on them... Success never has depended and will never depend on position, on arms, nor even on numbers; and, least of all, on position."
"On what then?"
"On the feeling that is in me and him," he indicated Timohin, "and every soldier."

"Strange are the historical accounts that tell us how some king or emperor, quarrelling with another king or emperor, levies an army, fights a battle with the army of his foe, gains a victory, kills three, five, or ten thousand men, and consequently subdues a state and a whole people consisting of several millions; and incomprehensible it seems that the defeat of any army, one hundredth of the whole strength of a people, should force that people to submit."