Who wants a chunky?

And so I'm at it again. I've just signed up for the Chunkster Challenge 2008! In this challenge, from now until December 20th, I need to read four chunky books (books over 450 pages long). Really there are no other requirements. AND I can cross over, so books that I'm reading for other challenges, I can read for this. Sounds good to me!

The List:

LA Confidential - James Ellroy
The Red and the Black - Stendhal
The Virgin's Lover - Phillippa Gregroy
Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See

snow flower and the secret fan
lisa see
c. 2006
288 pages

*may contain spoilers*


Another book read for the Expanding Horizons Challenge (see sidebar), this time, Asia. This is a story about two girls in rural China who are matched together as laotong, meaning 'old same.' Your laotong is another girl who you are bound to for life, someone to love and share life with, like a best friend. The book often compared the bond of laotong's to marriage. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan follows these girls through their lives in China from the time they are matched until death.

I both enjoyed and was disappointed in this book. This was a very quiet and gentle book; there was not a lot of conflicted action. Instead it just gently plodded along telling the very usual story of two Chinese girls. When there was conflict or struggle, such as the deaths of Third Sister and Beautiful Moon, it came on very suddenly and was very suddenly over and life continued to plod along.

This was also true of the main conflict of the story. The three main conflicts (the epidemic, the uprisings, and then the misunderstanding between Lily and Snow Flower) were all lumped together, happened one after the other, and then were so quickly over. We had spent almost three fourths of the book so slow and gentle, and then all of a sudden tragedy strikes and is over.

I was disappointed between the misunderstanding between Lily and Snow Flower. I had read the back of the book and knew that some kind of misunderstanding took place, and that that was supposed to be a central theme of the story, but like I said before it happened and was over so quickly. I had waited all through the book for something to happen, but then we seemed to so quickly gloss over it. Snow Flower said something to hurt Lily's feelings, Lily embarrassed Snow Flower in front of all the women of the town, and then it's eight years later.

Besides those disappointments, I greatly enjoyed the amount of detail that went into describing the day to day lives of Chinese women, as well as their festivals and ceremonies. These descriptions were very beautifully and vividly written. I just wish the same amount of depth went into the story as well.

3/5

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

half of a yellow sun
chimamanda ngozi adichie
560 pages
c. 2006

*contains possible spoilers*

I read this book as part of the 2008 Expanding Horizons Challenge (see sidebar). I was particularly interested in that challenge for, while I am an ardent lover of history and culture, I have so far mainly stayed in England, with jaunts into France and Spain, and the extremely occasional journeys to Asia. This challenge pushes me to taste so many different places and cultures.

Freak that I am, I like to do everything in some sort of order. And for this list I chose to read these books in alphabetical order according to ethnic category. As such, Africa comes first. Half of a Yellow Sun is set during the Nigerian/Biafron war of the late 60's, focusing on the intermingled lives of five characters: Odenigbo, a revolutionary academic; Olanna, his high class lover; Ugwu, his houseboy; Kainene, Olanna's willful twin sister; and Richard, Kainene's British lover. The narrative is told through the eyes of Ugwu, Olanna, and Richard, rotating between chapters.

I really enjoyed reading this book. As I alluded to before, this is an area I really have no knowledge about, which made the reading both interesting and frustrating. There was quite a bit about the Nigerian politics that I didn't understand, such as the causes of the two coups and the hatred between the different Nigerian peoples.

I specifically enjoyed that this book showed three extremely different points of view. All three of these people were going through the same sorts of circumstances (the challenges and hardships of the Nigerian/Biafran war), all three were on the same side (that of the Biafrans), yet all three, due to who they were, had to view the war in such different ways. Olanna chose to stay behind in Biafra when her parents were offering to take her away to London, to safety. She had options, she had people she could turn to for help in the worst of times. Ugwu's fate was continually chosen for him. Wherever "Master" and "Mah" took him, he would go. When his towns were forced to evacuate, it was not home to his family he went, it was on to Odenigbo's family. This same essence of non-control followed him in his conscription into the army. While his day to day life changed rapidly after that occurrence, the obedience to his outside forces did not. And last of all Richard, the outsider. Through the whole book, he tried so hard to be one of the Biafrans, but eventually he figured out, and summed up in his statement to Ugwu, "the war is not my story to tell." And it never was.

While I greatly appreciated the difference between life in the early '60's where we saw the characters unfold and life in the late '60's where we saw the characters change due to the war, I did not understand that author's decision to jump from early to late than back to early and then late again. Maybe these jumps were a way of compounding the importance of both Odenigbo's and then Olanna and Richard's betrayals. Maybe we wanted to see that Olanna had completely taken Baby into her home and her heart. However, I feel the story would have flowed a great deal more if things had just gone chronologically.

I feel the end of the story was incredibly beautifully and tragically told. I like that, just like Olanna and Richard, we are left not knowing what happened to Kainene. And I felt it was justified for Ugwu to come home and find himself on both sides of his dirty deed.

After reading this book, I wholeheartedly agree with one of Kainene's sentiments. This book really does depict some true horrors of war, some truly unspeakable and unforgivable events. War can make people do things they never would have done. But in the face of such heinous acts, past actions that should have been unforgivable are forgiven.

4/5

Books Read in 2007

1. The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy (3/5)
2. The Giver - Lois Lowry (4/5)
3. Dead Man Walking - Sister Helen Prejean
4. A Million Little Pieces - James Fray (4/5)
5. Or Give Me Death - Ann Rinaldi (4/5)
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling (5/5)
7. A Respectable Trade - Phillippa Gregory (3/5)
8. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - JK Rowling (reread)
9. Sex With the Queen - Eleanor Herman (4/5)
10. The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
11. Wicked - Gregory Maguire (2/5)
12. Wise Children - Angela Carter (5/5)
13. The Castle of Ortranto - Horace Walpole (2/5)
14. Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury (3/5)
15. The Boleyn Inheritance - Phillippa Gregory (4/5)
16. The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan (3/5)
17. A Morbid Taste for Bones - Ellis Peters (reread)
18. One Corps Too Many - Ellis Peters (reread)

Favorite Fiction: Wise Children Least
Favorite Fiction: The Castle of Otranto
Favorite NonFiction: Sex With the Queen
Favorite ReRead: One Corpse Too Many

January goals...

Okay, so it's true that I've already posted about my new Christams books today, but now I think I am going to be setting some January goals. I may be extremely busy during January since I'm getting ready to move from Seattle to San Diego (or from Canado to Mexico as my dad likes to say) around January 12th, but I am determined that since I have no job other than packing and moving, I will most likely have some down time. And in that down time I intend to read a great deal. And so my goal is to finish the two novels in my 'Currently Reading' list (the histories and non fiction can sometimes take me A WHILE) and the five novels in my 'In Line to be Read' list. And since I oftentimes will change up those lists, I will be writing them all down here to make sure I don't forget.


Adolphe - Benjamin Constant
Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Persuasion - Jane Austin
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See
LA Confidential - James Ellroy
Monks Hood - Ellis Peters
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe - Fannie Flagg

Number 1 on my New Years Resolutions list!

Chirstmastime is here...

Christmastime has come and gone. I'm always a little sad the day after Christmas. I love the holidays. But now it's time to start thinking of those New Years resolutions. Hmm... I had a good Christmas. We've reconnected with some family that we haven't seen in about twelves years, my Aunt Jan and Cousin Eric. And of course my Granny and Auntie Lamb came. Through Christmas I have received only three books (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Cast Two Shadows by Ann Rinaldi), but also a gift card to Barnes and Nobles to buy myself more. Two of these books are on my Expanding Your Horizons list, so yea! I think I'm going to take this gift card and spend some of it on Phillippa Gregory's The Virgin's Lover. I don't know about the rest. But it will be a good new year of reading!

It's been a while, but there's more...

Penguin Classics - F
1. The Faerie Queene - Edmund Spenser
2. A Fairly Honourable Defeat - Iris Murdoch
3. The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allen Poe
4. Far from the Maddening Crowd - Thomas Hardy
5. Father and Son - Edmund Gosse
6. Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev
7. Faust - Johann Wolfgang Goeth
8. Fear and Trembling - Soren Kierkegaard
9. Felix Holt, the Radical - George Eliot
10. The Fiddler of the Reels - Thomas Hardy
11. The Fifth Business - Robertson Davies
12. The Fifth Queen - Ford Madox Ford
13. The Figure in the Carpet - Henry James
14. Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
15. First Love - Ivan Turgenev
16. Five Children and It - E. Nesbit
17. The Flame Trees of Thika - Elspeth Huxley
18. Flatland - Edwin A. Abbott
19. The Four Feathers - AEW Mason
20. The Fox, The Captain's Doll, The Ladybird - DH Lawrence
21. Framley Parsonage - Anthony Trollope
22. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
23. French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David

Expanding my horizons...

Hmmm...another new challenge. This time, the Expanding Horizons challenge, hosted by Melissa at the Book Nut:

Between January and April 2008, choose four books in one category, or one book from each category. And the categories are (by author):

- African
- Asian
- Indian
- Latino
- Middle Eastern
- Native Peoples

I have chosen the second challenge, one from each category. While my list is subject to change, it currently stands as:

African: Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi (Nigeria)
Asian: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See (China)
Indian: Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard - Kiran Desai (India)
Latino: Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Maquez (Colombia)
Middle Eastern: The Saffron Kitchen - Yasmin Crowther (Iran)
Native Peoples: The Whale Rider - Witi Ihimaera (New Zeland - Maori)

Don't be a hater...

It is now Christmas time. And with that comes great tradition. I love that most families have very specific traditions that they follow to a tee every year. My traditions with my family include watchign certain Christmas movies, or listening to certain Christmas cds. My dad finds new Christmas songs to learn on the guitar and my sisters and I sing them at church. My whole family goes to see the Christmas Revels in Tacoma a few weeks before Christmas. My sisters, dad, and I wake up early and arrive at the mall before everything's open to enjoy a breakfast of cinnabons on the morning of Christmas Eve.

One of my mom's favorite Christmas movies to watch is the Rankin and Bass clay-mation Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. And so last night the family (inlcuding Katie's boyfriend Eddy) all piled into the living room to watch Rudolph. And while we sat there watching, a thought crossed my mind that I hav never thought before.

Santa Claus is a hater.

I'm not even kidding. If you watch the movie, Santa knows about Rudolph's nose from the very beginning and tells Donner, his father, that he's got to get rid of it. He won't let him join the sleigh team. Tells him straight up that it's because of his nose. It's only at the end when Rudolph's nose can do something for him that he lets him join the team.

I never would have thought that the jolly old fat man himself would be such a hater.

Lost treasures...

I have had LA Confidential in my "In Line To Be Read" list for quite some time. To be honest, I bought it and started to read it once before, probably close to a year ago, but I don't think I got much farther than the first chapter. It's next on my list of the "100 Greatest Novels" and so it's next on my "In Line To Be Read" list and since I finished reading The Cement Garden, I figured now would be a good time to try again. Unfortunately, I can't find it! I don't know what I've done with the book. And so to tied me over until I find it, I've started rereading the Brother Cadfael mysteries, an immensely delightful series of murder mystery novels about and 11th century monk playing detective. One thing about the Brother Cadfael series, and really any series for me, is when I want to read them I have to start at the beginning. It's one of my super weird quirks, but I absolutely will not ever read a series of books out of order. There are roughly 21 books in this series. My favorite Brother Cadfael book is the second, One Corpse Too Many, but if I decide I want to read it, I have to read A Morbid Taste For Bones first. And then if I quit reading them for a while and then want to start reading them again, I have to start at the beginning. Which is possibly why I've never been able to make it past the 9th book and I've read the first few a ridiculous amount of time. It's a good thing I enjoy the first few so much.