Review: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

There isn't really an appropriate word to describe this book. Amazing is over-used and wonderful sounds too cheerful. Perfect would be incorrect. If I can't even find the right word for the first adjective in the whole review, I'm not going to be able to do this book justice when it comes to actually talking about it, but I have to try. All Quiet on the Western Front was so much more than I expected and it completely blew me away.

Plot summary: In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'glorious war'. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young 'unknown soldier' experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.

I thought this was about cowboys. Yeah, I know. I can see the giant poppy too.

I'm not even sure why I picked it up off my shelf that morning. I was in a rush and panic-picked a book that I could comfortably leave on my seat without a client believing they were being represented by a mushy teenager. Snobbery, so sue me. I glanced at the blurb and, after being disillusioned of my cowboy-related fears, I shoved it in my bag.

I read the first few pages at lunchtime and didn't know whether to cry or be sick. You know when a book grabs you completely within a page or two, and the world just sort of... stops? I put the book down and was just sat, staring blankly into space whilst everything that had just happened swirled around my head.

Every second that I was not reading All Quiet on the Western Front, I wanted to be. It's simultaneously really easy to read and really difficult. It's quite obviously not a happy story. There are no chirpy evacuees, no whirlwind romances and no duck-shaped gas marks. This is solely one soldier's experiences of life at the Front and it is brutal.

What make this book a classic, however, is the humanity of it. Paul is nineteen years old, bullied into joining up by well-intentioned teachers, and he is now numb inside. This is not a story of one man's terror, as Paul is past that now. Instead he is resigned to his death, protective of the new recruits, betrayed by authority and sickened by his life at home. There is so, so much feeling in this book.

They were supposed to be the ones who would help us eighteen-year-olds to make the transition, who would guide us into adult life, into a world of work, of responsibilities, of civilized behaviour and progress - into the future. In our minds the idea of authority – which is what they represented – implied deeper insights and a more humane wisdom.

But the first dead man that we saw shattered this conviction. We were forced to recognize that our generation was more honourable than theirs; they only had the advantage of us in phrase-making and in cleverness. Our first experience of heavy artillery fire showed us our mistake, and the view of life that their teaching had given us fell to pieces under that bombardment.

While they went on writing and making speeches, we saw field hospitals and men dying: while they preached the service of the state as the greatest thing, we already knew that the fear of death is even greater. This didn’t make us into rebels or deserters, or turn us into cowards – and they were more than ready to use all of those words – because we loved our country just as much as they did, and so we went bravely into every attack. But now we were able to distinguish things clearly, all at once our eyes had been opened. And we saw that there was nothing left of their world. Suddenly we found ourselves horribly alone – and we had to come to terms with it alone as well. 

There is a narrative, to an extent. Paul gets sent on offensives, gets some home leave, gets injured, etc. There's a story here, to an extent, but it's much more valuable for the emotion contained within. It's as if somebody has handed you a big ball of Feelings, tied up with string.

All Quiet on the Western Front is traumatic. Not for the graphic gore or the bloodshed (although obviously there's fairly prevalent), but for the aspects of war that we are so removed from. I read this three weeks ago now and it's still going through my head. That said, it somehow avoids being a depressing book. I never felt miserable, despite reading about the atrocities that are somehow acceptable in wartime. Instead I felt, and still feel, so incredibly blessed and so lucky that our generation has been able to experience growing up without fear.

Visit the British Legion's website and learn more about the Poppy Appeal here.

Review: War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy

It's been a while since we finished the War & Peace read-a-long and I hope everybody's finally got used to reading whatever the hell they want again! It took me a few weeks to get rid of the pervading feeling of guilt I felt because I was reading something that wasn't an epic Russian classic. Now we're a few months on, I thought I'd take the time to write a proper, overall review of the book, with the benefit of hindsight, time and space.

Plot summary (HA!): Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately connected with the national history that is played out in parallel with their lives. Balls and soirees alternate with councils of war and the machinations of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles with everyday human passions in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed.

The prodigious cast of characters, seem to act and move as if connected by threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will, fate, and providence. Yet Tolstoy's portrayal of marital relations and scenes of domesticity is as truthful and poignant as the grand themes that underlie them.

I love how even the blurb can't be arsed to try and unravel the various plots... 

War & Peace can best be summed up in one simple sentence - 'not as bad as I expected.' I mean, come on. It's one of the most intimidating books available in the English language; people who have never touched a page of this tome use it as a simile for something unecessarily long or arduous. It's long, it's huge and it's filled with teeny tiny little text.

So why read it then? Well, while I concede this makes me an awful human being, I wanted to Have Read It. I know, right? In my defence, I don't intend to trot it out at dinner parties (like I have the type of friends who host dinner parties anyway) or bludgeon people with my reading history. I just like secretly holding the fact to myself, that I have read War & Peace.

In truth, it was alright. I will admit that it started a great deal better than it ended as it suffered a gradual decline into tedium. To begin with, I was looking forward to picking up War & Peace, which is a statement I never thought I'd say. I was managing to read other books alongside, but I didn't mind putting them aside to go back to 1800s Russia.

It opens in the city itself, with a lot of gossip, scandal and drama. To be honest, it could be a Jane Austen novel if you replaced all the furs with ribboned bonnets. Who wants to marry who, who's too poor to marry, who needs to settle down and stop messing about with the boys... etc. It's interesting.

We then flit to the war with Napoleon. I found the wars bits mildly less interesting, but it was somewhat reassuring that I could pick out odd parts that I remembered from A-level history. The problem with the military parts is that Tolstoy assumes you already know and intimately understand the Napoleonic Wars. He refers to the Russians as 'we' and occasionally tangents into discussions of what should have been the appropriate cause of action.

This does sound a little odd, but if you were reading a historical fiction novel about World War II, aimed at English-speaking audiences, you wouldn't really expect it to bother explaining the war and how it happened and who was Allied with who, would you? I suppose Tolstoy didn't really expect his epic novel to become the renowned worldwide staple that it is today, and therefore didn't bother explaining himself all that much.

Anyway, I managed to struggle through the war parts with a combination of Shmoop and my slightly foggy A2 knowledge. I admit that I did spend most of it wishing we could hurry up and get back to the court gossip though. The two parts tend to alternate, at least for a while - War, Peace, War, Peace, War, Peace. Unfortunately, as the war becomes more serious and Russia starts to lose, it becomes more:

War, Peace, War, War, War, War, Peace, War.   

By this point, I think a lot of us had started to struggle. It was quite long-winded, quite dry, a little ranty and we had been reading the damn thing for two months by that point. It's hard to tell whether our disssatisfaction was purely due to the book itself or our desire to read something, anything else.

My main issue with War & Peace is that it seems Tolstoy didn't plan a damn thing before writing it. Aside from the obvious point that the book is unecessarily, obnoxiously long, he goes off on mad tangents that I can only assume were affected by whatever was going on in the real world around him that week. We spend a few chapters off on an insanely detailed hunting trip because (genuinely) Tolstoy was on a hunting expedition in real life. In another part, one of the characters decides to shlep off and join the Freemasons - it's rumoured Tolstoy came across some Masonic documents around that time.

His lack of planning is also evidenced by the sub-plots that are left hanging and aren't dealt with, and his sudden killing off of characters that he doesn't need anymore. Look, it's 1800s Russia. I understand that a lot of people are going to die. Yay realism. But he spends ages building up your relationship with a certain character... and then kills them off in a pragraph because they've become unecessary! ARGH.

The ending is quite anti-climactic as well, as it just assumes you know what happened after Napoleon limped out of Russia. It just kind of... stops.

The fundamental, over-arching Point of War & Peace, and correct me if I'm wrong, seems to be that military leaders don't have a whole lot to do with the eventual outcome of battles or revolutions. It's more related to the spirit of the people and the wings of the butterfly. There's a whole pretentious epilogue to spell this out for you, but that's the very basic gist.

I'm glad I understand the underlying principle or I may have felt that the three months I spent reading this book were a waste of time. As it happens, I don't think that. I enjoyed reading this, much more than I expected to, and I've come away understanding a little more about Napoleonic Russia. I don't see myself needing to read this again, honestly, but I am glad we took the time to immerse ourselves properly in this epic novel.

We're FREEEEEE!   

Review: Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon

Produced: Vertigo 

Written: Brian K. Vaughan             Artist: Niko Henrichon

Based on a true story, acclaimed writer Brian K. Vaughan (Saga) and artist Niko Henrichon present a tale of love, war... and pride. In war-torn Iraq, many casualties have gone unreported - among them, an escaped pride of lions. This struggling family of four great cats must find a way to stay together and avoid the deadly conflict that's exploding around them in a world they can never hope to comprehend.

Pride of Baghdad isn't the only book to explore what happened when the war and subsequent bombings in Iraq caused animals to escape their encloses at a zoo and roam free around Baghdad. Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo by Lawrence Anthony offers a different take, and is definitely worth a read to get a true account of events, as this graphic novel is more of a concept than an actual report.

I would like to start by saying Pride of Baghdad has the potential to be a really great story - it has an interesting plot and some out-of-this-world art. At face value, this is an extremely well drawn view of what happens when lions are set free into a world they don't understand, reminiscent of the journey in Watership Down.

The problem is Vaughan's writing - every so often he hits you with a nice and subtle anti-war sledge hammer. If Vaughan had just kept to the great story theme of family and the journey into an unknown world and left Henrichon's art to tell the war story in the background, it would be an absolutely perfectly written and delivered story with the quiet undercurrent of an intelligent look at war through the eyes of animals.

Instead Vaughan seems to assume readers are stupid and won't grasp the message. In many ways, it would suit a story written for children-  the animals explain the concept of war to an audience it assumes has no knowledge of it. But then there's the scenes of sex and gang rape amongst lions, so obviously it is aimed at adults. There's even a scene when the the zoo is being bombed and a giraffes head explodes; nothing else, just it's head. But then the next bomb is big enough to send all the lions flying through the air. Where's the consistency? Clearly that scene only occurred to suit Vaughan's sledge hammer of shock, and best demonstrates Vaughan's unsuitability to tell the rest of this story.

The best example of Vaughan's inability to tell either an anti-war story or a simple journey of lions set free, is a scene where a turtle explains how when 'walkers' (people) fought, a 'poison' (oil) escapes and ultimately killed his entire family in the water. You get a full page image of his dead family lying in oil, little turtle babies and all, with a caption carried across from the previous page - the lion cub asks why the 'walkers' are fighting and the turtle responds with "Damned if I know son... Damned if I care."

The very next page shows lions having sex and the lioness demanding she wants more... It almost feels like a teenagers wet dream of sex and violence, for no purpose other than to shock. If you're going to treat the readers like children then remove the sex, violence and rape, and it could be a brilliant child-appropriate story. But if you want it to be a story that conveys a strong message to adults, then treat the reader as if they have the appropriate amount of intelligence.

It's not all bad though, as Niko Henrichon's art is simply stunning. It really is perfectly suited to tell this story through the unusual perspective of animals. He captures full, perfect emotion and reaction in the animals' faces and his art is the the real triumph of Pride of Baghdad. The art is what really drives this story and creates a bond between the reader and the characters. There are a few full page images and also some spread across two pages. These really have to be seen to be appreciated. Henrichon's take on Pride of Baghdad using different panel perspectives and colours schemes to convey the atmosphere of each scene is amazing - I can't speak highly enough of the art, it's truly impressive.

To summarise, it wasn't subtle enough to be smart and it wasn't consistent enough to be a good story. Though Pride of Baghdad is worth a read just for Henrichon's art alone, I would recommend this to somebody that's prepared to view this as a simple, don't ask questions story. A quote from Vaughan's own writing in Pride of Baghdad describes his take on this subject best - 'You ignorant young 'Radicals' disgust me. My dung has a deeper understanding of this world than you.'

Read my (more positive) review of Babylon's Ark, or purchase Pride of Baghdad from Forbidden Planet. 

Review: Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence

I grabbed this book on one of my 'Whee, look at all the free books!' sprees in the library. You know, where you'll pick up anything that looks even mildly interesting because hey, it's not like you have to pay for this. And just for the record, I did borrow this completely legally and on purpose, as Hannah from Once Upon A Time now blames me for the disappearance of every library book in every library in the entire world.

When the Iraq war began, conservationist Lawrence Anthony could think of only one thing: the fate of the Baghdad Zoo, located in the city centre and caught in the war's crossfire. Once Anthony entered Baghdad he discovered that full-scale combat and uncontrolled looting had killed nearly all the animals of the zoo. But not all of them. U.S. soldiers had taken the time to help care for the remaining animals, and the zoo's staff had returned to work in spite of the constant fire fights. Together, the Americans and Iraqis managed to keep alive the animals that had survived the invasion. "Babylon's Ark" chronicles the zoo's transformation from bombed-out rubble to peaceful park. Along the way, Anthony recounts hair-raising efforts to save a pride of the dictator's lions, close a deplorable black-market zoo, and rescue Saddam's Arabian horses.

To my discredit, I don't know a whole lot about the Iraq war. I watch the news most days but with so much changing information and different points of view, I find it quite hard to keep track of. Thankfully though, this isn't written assuming that you know all the ins and outs of the conflict; it keeps you informed in an easy but not condescending manner.

This is primarily about the animals though. This book actually managed to disgust me - Lawrence's almost-tangible aborhence of the way they're treated and abused filters through the pages and infects you with the desire to run out and stab those responsible yourself. It's horrible, and a sad consequence of war that had never occurred to me. Thing is, it's mostly avoidable. People chose to do those disgusting things to animals and Lawrence really emphasises that in his book.

But then again, a large portion of Babylon's Ark shows how human nature is often responsible for great things. The author admits himself that he couldn't have saved the zoo if he hadn't befriended the American soldiers. They often fed their own meals to the animals and salvaged meat and zoo equipment whenever they were able - just because they knew the plight of those animals wasn't right. Then there's also Iraqi zoo workers who trailed for an hour through an active war zone to work in their zoo. Lawrence never for one minute claims to have saved the zoo by himself; he frequently mentions the hundreds of people who all did their part.

I was a little apprehensive about starting it, because war stories are often a little dry and slow. Not this one. I was sucked in after about three pages. It's half moving animal story and half exciting innocent-in-a-war-zone story; so the book whizzes past. I couldn't put it down.

Even the writing style is more than passable. I'm a pain in the arse for spotting bad writing, but it just wasn't here. The descriptions of the zoo, the animals and the country make you feel as though you were really there, dodging bullets with the author, and his personality shines clearly through with every word.

As you can probably tell, I loved this book. Sometimes it made me so angry I got that tight feeling in my stomach, but mostly it moved me to a ridiculous extent. You don't need to be an animal-lover particularly, nor do you have to like war stories; it's a cliche but there really is something in it for everyone.

Review: The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

As I mentioned in my The Time Will Come post, I've recently reorganised my bookshelves so that all my TBR books are on one looooong shelf instead of several different piles. The end with the oldest books is closest to my bed, so they're all staring me in the face and I can easily convince myself that I actually want to read them. Or that's the theory, anyway. Of the last seven books, six have been from that end. I'm oddly proud... Anyway, The Postmistress is the latest addition as I bought it ooh.... early 2010? 

The wireless crackles with news of blitzed-out London and of the war that courses through Europe, leaving destruction in its wake. Listening intently on the other side of the Atlantic, newly-wed Emma considers the fragility of her peaceful married life as America edges closer to the brink of war. As the reporter’s distant voice fills the room, she sits convincing herself that the sleepy town of Franklin must be far beyond the war’s reach. But the life of American journalist Frankie, whose voice seems so remote, will soon be deeply entangled with her own. With the delivery of a letter into the hands of postmistress Iris, the fates of these three women become irrevocably linked. But while it remains unopened, can Iris keep its truth at bay?

The majority of the story follows Frankie, an American journalist in London seeking first to report the truth of the Blitz across the seas, and then to travel across Europe telling the story of the Jewish people pushed out of their homes. Unfortunately, she's the most irritating character. She's selfish, stroppy and naive and somehow expects wandering into Nazi Germany to be completely problemless. I did like her vague jobs at the censors behind her broadcasts though - they seemed to fill her out as a character and make her a little more real somehow.

The Postmistress herself doesn't seem to feature that much, which is a shame as she's by far the most interesting woman. 40-year-old Iris runs the rural Post Office by herself and loves the order and perfection that comes with such a job. Every letter in its place, every stamp in its corner. She isn't interested in the secrets the mail might possess - she never reads the back of a postcard or even notices who's sending perfume-scented enevelopes overseas. She just does her job and does it well.

Emma is the new wife of a young doctor in Cape Cod. She's heavily pregnant and hasn't heard from her husband in months, as he's gone to provide medical aid to the bombed residents of London. She refuses to believe he's dead as she has heard no news and the letters he used to send daily have stopped.

I did like the book, but it's not what I expected. Firstly, it's not a whole lot to do with either the Postmistress or letters. Like the blurb states, she does withhold a letter... but it's not even integral to the plot. The whole Post Office side could have been cut out of the story and the book would barely need to change. Ms Blake's notes at the back say that she saw her own Post Lady slip a letter into her own pocket once and that's what inspired the story, but I think that got lost somewhere along the way. It kind of defeats the purpose for me. Fair enough, Frankie had a more action-packed story, but don't pretend that the story's about a Postmistress when it's plainly not. 

The prose is beautiful though. Sarah Blake clearly has a gift for providing stunning imagery, whether its the sandy dunes of Cape Cod or the train station in Berlin packed with Jewish immigrants. Even the dialogue flows naturally, although I found that the viewpoint would change suddenly and we were being shown somebody else's opinion with no obvious gap inbetween. 

I felt that the ending was slightly anti-climactic too. The whole book was building to this big revelation... and then it was dealt with quietly and shoved under the carpet. After the entire point of the book turned out to be different than promised, the lack of any real ending was the icing on the cake.

I think I can sum it up best by saying that I loved the writing style and the characters that felt so real. The War felt gritty and terrifying, and wasn't glossed over like it is in so many books. I loved everything... apart from the story. It ruined it for me. It just kind of meanders around and then peters out gradually. It could have been such a brilliant book, but it just, well... wasn't.

Review: Making History by Stephen Fry

Yesterday I discovered one of the most under-rated blessings of life - forgetting your keys when it's cold and raining. Because then, my dear friends, you are forced to continue reading the book in your handbag you'd given up for being boring, to distract you from the fact that you are a) cold and b) wet while sat on the doorstep. After 1 hour and 50 minutes of being sat the afore-mentioned cold stone step, you're almost (almost, I said) glad that you did so as the afore-mentioned book actually turns out to be very, very good.

Amazon - 'Michael Young is convinced his brilliant history thesis will win him a doctorate, a pleasant academic post, a venerable academic publisher and his beloved girlfriend Jane. A historian should know better than to imagine that he can predict the future. 

Leo Zuckerman is an ageing physicist obsessed with the darkest period in human history, utterly driven by his fanatical hatred of one man. A lover's childish revenge and the breaking of a rotten clasp cause the two men to meet in a blizzard of swirling pages. Pages of history. When they come together nothing - past, present or future - will ever be the same again.'

Oh shut up. So, basically Michael Young (who naturally appears as Stephen Fry in my head) is a miserable post-graduate history student who, along with an older Professor, use a machine to alter time so Adolf Hitler was never born, ergo no Holocaust, no World War II, etc. Mr Fry  Mr Young is transported into the new reality with a complete knowledge of what happened, and is shocked to discover that the new world is very different to how he expected.

I first thought that this novel was the dullest thing I had ever experienced. I got a quarter of the way in and was prepared to give it up as a bad job. But then, as you probably gathered, I was stuck sat on a cold stone step for nearly two hours and figured I might as well read a bit more. I'm glad I did, because this book turned out to be amazing.

It does have a very, very slow start as Michael Young complains about his sad little life, alternating with chapters narrated by historical characters you've never heard of. But if you persevere past the first third, it gets to the point where you just can't put it down. The characters are all completely believable, and Michael's confusion at his new life is very realistic.

I think I expected it to be funny, so I couldn't get along with its serious tone. It's not a humourous book, but Mr. Fry's voice is still perfectly clear and shines with the dry tone we're all accustomed to. I preferred the chapters dealing with Michael than the ones set in the past, as the multitude of German names and historical events was a little confusing and dull.

My one problem was a lot of it wasn't adequately explained. The thing that bothered me the most was why Michael retained his memory of his old life after he travelled, but nobody else did, not even the Professor he worked with. It didn't make a whole lot of sense and there wasn't even an attempt to explain it. Similarly, the reader is supposed to just accept a lot of what changed through a lack of Hitler, without being told why it did so. I mean, why is homosexuality illegal in the new world, and why does everybody drink out of pointed cups? I'd just have liked a little more explanation.

Oh, and a few of the chapters are written in screenplay-form for no apparent reason. I understand that those were the 'important' scenes, but non-prose fiction just doesn't immerse you quite as well and frequently I found I was skimming and had to go back and start again.

But still, it's a very clever book regardless and I'm definitely glad I persevered with it. The ending especially sealed the deal for me - I do like a nicely rounded-off ending and this one even gave me the Happy Book Fuzz.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The film had better be good. S'all I'm saying.

From LibraryThing - Katniss Everdeen has survived two Hunger Games, only to find her home district bombed to ruin by the Capitol. Airlifted out of the arena of her final Games, she finds herself in the underground, militaristic District 13, run by the enigmatic President Coin. She volunteers, relectunantly, to be the Mockingjay for the rebel movement, as the fate of all the people she loves-- her family, Peeta, Gale-- hangs in the balance.


This is going to be a very difficult review to write. Throughout the majority of the book, I was mentally muttering to myself what a disappointment it was and how it completely lost the point of the previous two, but then... then I cried at the end and wondered if I'd ever read anything so good. Sigh. Bear with me folks.

First of all, it doesn't have the feel of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, although you can see exactly where Ms Collins has tried to force it. Characters look at each and gasp in shocked tones, "Wow! It's just like The Hunger Games!" just so you can't miss the supposed similarities. If it was a film, you'd have to shoot the screenplay writer for the terrible dialogue. I just didn't care for the whole army-style feel to it - it seemed like every other YA dystopian book out there, which is a shame as these books have always stood on their own feet.

However, Katniss does become a lot more likeable in this book. She irritated me previously because of her complete lack of emotion regarding... well, everything. She murdered people in the arena in the middle of an unfair game and never once considered the moral issues, and took what she wanted from the people who loved her without giving anything in return.  In Mockingjay though, she finally stops pushing people away and starts to be affected by the horrors around her. I particularly liked the points where she realised that the tragedies going on were immoral and unnecessary - it showed how much she'd developed along the way.

My main gripe with this one is the abundance of Gale and a lack of Peeta. Normally I can't stand YA romance as it always feels like it was heaped on with a shovel, but Katniss and Peeta's relationship was so beautifully developed and deep that I wanted to see more of it. Instead, he barely features until the very last page (literally) and Gale's pushy, whiny personality shows up far too much. The lack of focus on their relationshiop is a huge factor in why I didn't like it as much as the others.

By EmpressFunk

I did feel like a lot of the deaths were skated over instead of being dealt with. I know it's a longer book already but surely they could have trimmed down the hours of tramping round army bases to give important characters a good send-off? I'd come to love some of them and felt like they'd been treated unfairly - like Chewie when Princess Leia doesn't give him a medal.

At the end, Katniss uncovers a huge secret behind the rebellion that causes her to act out, but nobody evers questions her afterwards - her actions are just accepted and she's patted on the head and sent on her way. I've read a lot of reviews that talked about how rushed the ending seemed, and I have to agree with them. The author seems to continually have put too much focus on unimportant events and neglected the important ones.

I do admit to crying at the end and getting that Happy Book Fuzz in my stomach. I did enoy the book, it's just that the trilogy seemed to lose its edge here, without any arenas or Games to make it special.

Also, I hate epilogues. Hate them. I just don't care what the characters are doing after they've defeated Lord Voldemort or they've finished fighting the Capitol. I care about the story, not what they name their children. End of.

LATER: I almost forgot. I love that damn cat.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

I read this first in 2009, but I picked it up again a few days ago to form part of the Books To Movie Challenge hosted by Two Bibliomaniacs. I've had the film on my shelf since reading it the first time but I figured the challenge was a sign from The Great Reader In The Sky to finally get round to watching it.

From Amazon - 'Michael Berg is 15 when he begins a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. He never learns very much about her and when she disappears one day, he expects never to see her again. But, to his horror, he does. Hanna is a defendant in a trial related to Germany's Nazi past and it soon becomes clear that she is guilty of an unspeakable crime. As Michael follows the trial, he struggles with an overwhelming question: what should his generation do with its knowledge of the Holocaust?' 

Okay, so first of all - THIS BOOK HAS MY NAME IN IT. This is A Huge Deal when your name is as rare as mine and you've spent your entire life being asked why you spell your name wrong. Hardly a glowing recommendation if your name's not Hanna, but mine is and so I'm going to continue to irritate those around me by reading out passages that might even vaguely be read to mean me.

Just in case my excitement over the use of my name hasn't caught on... this is one of the most moving and emotional books I've ever read. Michael's feelings for Hanna are brutally exposed and Hanna's refusal to save herself during the trial for her crimes made me want to hug her and shake her all at the same time. Hanna and Michael are the only regularly occurring characters but I'd easily agree that they have the best described personalities of any book I've ever read. They seem so real - there is no attempt to hide their flaws and the reasons behind their motivations and desires are so obvious that they don't even need to be explained.

Part of the moving nature of the book comes from the different 'voices' of Michael. Part One details his affair with Hanna - his obsession with her body, youthful desires and complete acceptance of his awkward situation sets it apart completely from Part Two. Here Michael is much older and analyses meticulously the psychology behind his relation with Hanna in the past and the present. The vocabulary is more advanced and he examines her trial from legal and moral aspects, thoroughly and honestly attributing blame where it is due. This in particular is why The Reader is so clever - the 'Michael' in each part is different, yet still recognisably developed from the other.

The summary from Amazon asks how the generation born after the War are meant to deal with the Holocaust, but this wasn't the underlining issue for me in this book.


'Imagine someone is racing intentionally towards his own destruction and you can save him - do you go ahead and save him? Imagine there's an operation, and the patient is a drug user and the drugs are incompatible with the anaesthetic, but the patient is ashamed of being an addict and does not want to tell the anaesthetist - do you talk to the anaesthetist?'


Hanna could not possibly have committed the crimes for which she is on trial due to a secret shame she holds. Revealing this secret would drastically reduce her sentence in prison, but she holds firm and continues to guard herself. Michael must choose whether to enlighten the court or protect Hanna's secret and save her from a life-time in prison. I'm amazed this didn't feature in the summary, as for me this moral issue is the fundamental point of the book. 


In addition to the moral issues, the legal principles also interested me - possibly because the glow from my recently acquired Law degree hasn't yet worn off. There's one thing I don't understand though - retroactive justice has always (since the 1700s) been seen as unjust and renders any action unindictable. When Hanna and the other women were guards at that camp, their actions were perfectly legal and were only defined as 'crimes' after the fact. This is 'Victor's Law' and so the whole trial would have been invalid.

I know, I know, it's fiction... but I had a morbid enthusiasm for war crimes during University :)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I know, I know. I'm so behind with this one that it hurts me a little bit inside. Only people who live under rocks have the excuse of reading this as late as I have. I wish I'd got here sooner - it's every bit as good as you all said it was.

From Amazon (not that you don't know already): 'Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. But Katniss has been clse to death before—and survival, for her, is second nature. The Hunger Games is a searing novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present. Welcome to the deadliest reality TV show ever...'

I did have my gripes with this one, but only teeny ones. I adored it. It somehow neatly bridges the gap between YA and Adult and produces this wonderful, yet slightly brutal, novel.

It reminds me of a form of Battle Royale for teens  -  a Japanese film where a bunch of young people are forced to kill each other in a situation every similar to The Hunger Games. It's a good film, but way more brutal and disturbing than this. I loved how Ms Collins actually explanied how the Hunger Games came to be - it's annoyingly frequent how many authors of dystopian novels shove their fingers in their ears and pretend backstory is a mythological concept akin to unicorns. In this book, the situation is made more... real, I guess, by the actual reasons given for the circumstances.

It takes a very talented author to invent twenty-four teenagers and give them all completely distinct personalities. Katniss, Peeta, Rue, Thresh... they all stand out clearly from one another as different people with different thoughts. I swear, I loved Rue so much I wanted to take her home and squish her.

My only real dislike was Katniss' complete lack of compassion. She never seems at all put-out that she may have to kill her peers, nor does she ever stop to think that it might not be perfectly okay to do so. She barely blinks when she does kill somebody and never acts like the whole thing might possibly be A Big Deal. If it were me, I'd be slightly peturbed (read: terrified) at the whole situation and you wouldn't see me for dust. And yes, I know she'd been brought up with the concept, but even so - she'd still be nervous, scared, or at least something other than vaguely apathetic.

I could have done without the romance, but I say that so often I'm going to have it engraved on my tombstone.

It has a very predictable plot, as the outcome of The Games was obvious from the train ride to the Capitol. It barely diminishes the book though - just because you know the destination doesn't mean you can't enjoy the ride. Without even reading the back of the next in the series, I can guess where it's going though.

I have to admit to not being overly thrilled at the ending - I'd prefer the book to cut off straight after the Hunger Games ended. There are a good few books that would be far improved by the removal of their last few pages (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I'm looking at you!), and this is definitely one of them. That little bit would have made more sense in the beginning of Catching Fire.

IMDB tells me that there's going to a film next year, although that's hardly surprising. What is surprising though, is that I don't automatically hate the girl they've cast to play Katniss. She's not perfect, but she'll do for me. I'm sure it will be a horrifying adaptation, but then again, they usually are.

I've heard that these films are going to be hyped up to a Twilight-esque extent, but I really don't see it. Everyone in the entire world was obsessed with Twilight, but I hadn't even heard of Suzanne Collins util I started trawling through book blogs. They're huge in our cozy little world, but I can imagine people going to see the film and then promptly forgetting that it was once words on a page.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

A very short and vague review because I have to admit, I didn't actually finish this book. I probably could have struggled through to the end if I wanted to, but... I just didn't. 

From Amazon - 'Another outing for the classic legend of the boy who journeys to the stars to defeat an alien horde and save the human race. Ender Wiggin is Battle School's latest recruit. His teachers reckon he could become a great leader. And they need one. A vast alien force is headed for Earth: its mission, the annihilation of all human life. Ender could be our only hope. But first he must survive the most brutal military training programme in the galaxy.'

This is one of those books where the only way you can describe it is to shrug your shoulders and say it's 'fine.' There's just nothing special about it, positively or negatively. The characters are incredibly one-dimensional, the story is predictable and the setting is dull. 

I did enjoy the introduction, where the concept of children being continuously monitored for their military suitability is first explained. I liked how Ender was forced into certain situations to test his reactions, thought processes and strategies. Unfortunately my interest waned drastically after he left home until I just didn't care anymore. 

It's very rare that I don't finish a book once I've started, but it got to the point where I'd read a page and then wander off to play LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, cook something, phone my Mum... And hell, it's a YA book - the pages are hardly long.

It's strange though - looking at the Amazon reviews, you'd think it was the best book in the entire world. It has 105 five star reviews, 9 four star and only 11 that are any less than that. I just don't understand!