Emma; Jane Austen

This has been on my shelf for so long.  SO LONG.  And I didn't read it, because as much as I enjoyed the Gwyneth Paltrow rendition (?) of the story, it also sort of bores me and I was afraid.  Afraid of trying to get into it and being bored by trifles.

Please don't think too poorly of me for that fear.

The back of the book explains it quite well, and helps me understand why I did end up enjoying it so much.

"Jane Austen's intimate study of a complex young lady of twenty, whose egotism, snobbishness, malice, and zeal for arranging the affairs of others leads her into errors of judgement which she must eventually face."  (There's another sentence to that part, but again, it gives away the ending and it still horrifies me that the back-of-book summarizers don't have some sort of taboo against it.  And by "gives away" I mean tells you the ending.)

There's only one word in that summary that I disagree with, and am puzzled by.  "Malice."  I thought I had a pretty good understanding of that word so I looked to Webster to make sure: "desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another".  Yes.  That's what I thought.  I do not find it permissible for that word to be included in a description of Emma Woodhouse's character.  I wonder why it was allowed and I wish to strike it from the record.

This book is a wonderful character study.  As far as I'm concerned it is on par with a work of Dickens - but like a mini Dickens, because I haven't read one of his this short yet.

This is what the rest of the back of the book has to say:

"Although Jane Austen is reported to have described Emma as "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like", many readers have thought the novel her greatest.  Mark Schorer, in his introduction, also places it at the head of her achievements."

Okay.  I'm not sure I'd go that far.  I have to read the rest of her works, I suppose.  But ... I mean, it is a Jane Austen.  You have to expect certain things, and most certainly not expect others.  Like... don't expect a plethora of action sequences, but do expect witty conversation, and inevitable embarrassments for the main character.  You get that.  But I liked this book.  I think it is a great "setting-down" of a person's thoughts, situations and growth-- and has a lot of interesting insight.

"The first error, and the worst, lay at her door.  It was foolish, it was wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together.  It was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what ought to be serious -- a trick of what ought to be simple.  She was quite concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more."

The Da Vinci Code; Dan Brown

Okay.

I read it.  Finally.

I didn't understand its popularity and the hysteria that seethed around it in a mass of annoyed Catholics and other Christian groups.

So I listened to two sermons by Father Robert Barron and I guess I get their point.  The claim in the book that Christ wasn't or isn't divine would be cause for annoyance and uproar--

If the whole thing hadn't seemed quite so ridiculous.  And Father Barron did a good job in his first sermon on the topic of saying why the claim that Christ's divinity was an invention of the 4th Century was so ridiculous.

I guess I'll speak apart from all of the anti-Catholic sentiment that the book, I don't know, espouses?  I will simply treat this as a work of fiction.  Which it is.  Does Brown even make the claim that everything in it is true?  I hope not.

In any case.  Why was this book even popular?  I'm guessing because it tread in such highly charged waters.  It took on a subject in a fictional and adventurous sense that other books and authors hadn't.  That is the only reason I can see for its popularity.

It was a mystery/adventure story.  Is.  Whatever.  As far as I'm concerned... it wasn't that great.  It was interesting enough, I suppose, and there were some very "clever" puzzles, but it nothing new, and nothing that absorbing.  Brown makes good use of suspense and holding on to it as long as possible to keep interest going.  He has interesting timing.

But I saw nothing in the book that particularly makes me think it deserves to be in the company of some of the other books on this list.  His characters were unimaginative and saw very little growth throughout the course of the story.  The plot was... foreseeable.

The only particularly good thing about this book being on the list was that because it was so easy to read, it didn't cause me to pause in reveries of thought and self-searching, even as Moby Dick did in many places.

I wouldn't place it very high on any reading list.  There are SO many other, worthier titles -- even as far as children's books, that I would recommend.

Feel free to argue with me.  I would love to see more merit in this book.  My parents were here so it took me like three days to read it; which is just embarrassing.

Moby Dick; Herman Melville

"I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise."

I will lie neither to myself nor you. This book is painful to read. Moby Dick. It is almost set up on a pedestal, like some sort of king of American literature, unconquerable, proud, and menacing. It is a classic of epic and intimidating proportions. A monolith as big as its title character.

It is an amazing book. It is filled with unlooked-for beauty in its prose. At one moment struggling though a less than captivating description of the finer points of cetology, in the next being struck in the face by the masterful way in which your narrator, Ishmael, describes some aspect of life, or human nature or the sea.

This book is worthy of the label "classic". It should be read. My only advice is to go into the reading of it with an open mind and dedication. It was not easy for me to read. I'm pretty sure I've never taken this long to read a book in my entire life; and I have definitely read longer ones. But it is challenging and beautiful and worth while. I'm really glad to have finally read it and I think that I will again in the future.