Remember to visit your local book store!

This is just a reminder to visit your local bookstore the next time you would like to make a purchase.

What?! You don't know where there is one near you?!

http://www.indiebound.org/indie-store-finder

Go exploring with REAL bookworms!!

Pride & Prejudice...& Zombies

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith is a parody of the classic love story that goes to lengths to make it both humorous and palatable for new audiences, unaccustomed to the sometimes wordiness of older writing styles by infusing the text with references of flesh-eating zombies, crane kicks, and ladies who would just as soon eat the still-beating heart of their social enemies than be dishonored by their impudence. Suffice it to say, it is an accurate depiction of what life in early nineteenth-century England might have been like during an apocalypse of the undead, had you been privy to the society of a group of His Majesty’s best-trained zombie hunters, who also happened to be totally consumed with things like social graces, bonnets, and the merits of chasing sexy militia tail.

Haha, I’m so funny. To be honest though, I had a hard time taking this book seriously, which was probably the point. Literature should be fun and it should reflect the tastes of the day and I have absolutely no qualms in taking liberties with classics in an effort to spread their appeal, this book just didn’t appeal to me in particular. I’m not interested in zombies, vampires, werewolves, etc… I just don’t care. Give me wizards, hobbits, and elves any day, but keep your undead, your cursed, and your gratuitous violence.

One of the redeeming qualities of PPZ (Lindsay’s acronym) is that my husband enjoyed it. We had a couple road trips this month when I regaled him with stories of Elizabeth cleaning house with Lady Catherine’s ninjas and I caught a chuckle here and there. I asked for a zombie tutorial from him and was surprised to learn how little there was to zombie-lore: they have a virus, they don’t feel pain, they eat brains. That’s pretty much it. Not a particularly deep mythology I guess.

I did some of my own fact-finding (thank you Wikipedia) and learned that the myth comes variously form Haitian Vodou, New Orleans Voodoo, West African Vodun, and Hollywood. Of course. Hollywood would blend ancient religious practices and modern warfare and come up with “Resident Evil,” well done western culture. Really, brav-o.

The Sensuality of Books

I've recently begun following a blog called The Encyclopedia of Gratitude and it is a little ray of sunshine in my life. Here is a recent post on The Enduring Sensuality of Books. Enjoy!

Coolest Bookmark I've Seen...

Isn't the library great?

The House of Spirits - A Comparison to 100 Years of Solitude

After all of Angela's recommendations for Isabel Allende, it was great to be able to choose a book from this author for our book club with The House of the Spirits. We've already had the opportunity to read one book from the genre of magical realism, 100 Years of Solitude. Even though several months and pile of books separate my reading of these two books, I still noted some similarities between the two stories:

Touches of Magical Realism: The House of the Spirits seemed to have more muted elements of magical realism than 100 Years. If you missed one of these descriptive sentences, you may not catch on to the glimpse until later in The House of the Spirits. One of the more prominent cases that stood out to me was with Rosa the Beautiful and her white skin, yellow eyes and green hair. Clara's work with the paranormal was prominent throughout Spirits, but not as disruptive as other occurrences in the book.

Repetition of Names: For me, it was helpful to have the family tree printed out while reading 100 Years. Otherwise, it was nigh impossible to separate generations of Jose, Arcadio, Aureliano, Amaranta and Renata's. It was not nearly as complicated while reading The House of the Spirits. There was still the repetition of names, but using synonyms instead of repeating the names verbatim. Blanca and Alba are both terms for the color white, and I later found out that Nivea and Clara are synonyms as well. Clever, without being confusing!

Other Similarities:
Alchemy: much more prominent in 100 Years with Jose Arcadio and Melquiades, but still discussed in the first few chapters of Spirits.

Point of view: the narrator changes throughout the generations.

Latin American location

Political struggles: with ties to real world events and struggles the author embeds into the book.

Big homes: the families lived in rather large homes, often with multiple generations under one roof.

Magical visitors - Melquiades returns to the village of Macando to share fantastics stories, inventions and items for trade in 100 Years. Uncle Marco visits his family several times in Spirits, including the part of the story where he flies off into the mountains and returns several years later.

The House of the Spirits

Though not as circular as One Hundred Years of Solitude, The House of the Spirits does begin and end with almost the exact same sentence. It does however, reflect the cycle of social lives and how they repeat and occasionally change from generation to generation. Furthermore, I’ll repeat what I said about Marquez’s epic and apply it here: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende is not for the faint of heart, nor the short on imagination.

Published in 1982, it is a fairy’s tale of love, ambition, the mysticism of humanity, and the course of history in one Latin American country told from the perspective of someone who truly lived it. Allende is a master when it comes to creating magical realism that stays true to itself: what she writes is both magical and real. In The House of the Spirits she has delivered us a tale of the fictional Trueba and del Valle families and allowed us to share in their lives as they live them alongside the political clashes that marred South America’s history in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the divisive gulf that (still) exists between the indigenous and the criollos there, and the very real Poet and the Candidate/President.

In short, to understand social justice, liberation theology, or South America, one must have read this book. The clash that marks the beginning of the end of this text really happened, on September 11^th, 1973; a different kind of terrifying 9/11. The torture, the horror, the human rights violations are all true. A good follow-up to The House of the Spirits would be Allende’s Of Love and Shadows followed by My Invented Country.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I adore Allende’s books. I chose this book in April for our club to read because I want other people to read her and love her too. And if they don’t I can’t say I didn’t try. She opens up a world of literary possibility that is a bit more accessible than Marquez while giving the reader a glimpse of a culture, history, and people that we know so very little about in the United States, despite our government’s involvement there, despite our dependence on oil from there, despite our proximity, and despite our common history of invasion and colonization.