'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (5)

I had forgotten the meaning of the interesting Victorian phrase: ‘having great expectations’. We first hear the phrase when the young forge-apprentice protagonist, Pip, finds he has a secret benefactor who intends for him to become a gentleman with an inheritance – he now has ‘great expectations’. Young Pip believes this benefactor is the mysterious Miss Havisham, the strange lady who asked him to visit for amusement for her and her adopted daughter, Estella. We learn bits and pieces about the tragic past that leads to her isolation and strange behaviors. While much of the book focuses on the relationships Pip has, foremost with these two ladies, the secondary characters add color and become more prominent in the last 1/3 of the book. Here is where the story gets very compelling, as we learn more about Pip’s benefactor and the interconnecting lives or the characters. This great novel has many of the classic trademarks of Dickens: quirky characters, social inequities, humor amid tragedy, and standard Victorian trappings. I particularly loved Wemmick with his post office mouth and strange twin behavior (at work versus at home). Some readers may not have the patience to get through the Victorian language, but I encourage them to try as the gems of language are worth it. One of my favorites: instead of saying the rooms were stifling, Dickens writes ‘we found the air was carefully excluded from both rooms as if air were fatal to life.” Excellent.

'World Without End' by Ken Follett

World Without End, Ken Follett (3)

Can there be too much of a good thing? Concerning this book, I believe there can be. This is Ken Follett’s follow on story to ‘Pillars of the Earth’, set a couple of generations later in the same town in England. It has a similar premise of a couple of very capable likable characters struggling through life, battling the incompetent and evil people around them. At one point, I was reminded of Ayn Rand’s ever pounding philosophy (pardon my horrible paraphrasing): that the average will always try to hold back the extraordinary. While the story follows many events for the people in the town (mostly bad, but some good) and the technologies described are always interesting, the characters were too flat to hold my interest over 1000 pages. The two main characters are frankly too easy to like and the evil characters are always bad. Interesting book characters are more complicated and nuanced. I was tempted to give this book a ‘2.5’, but if you liked ‘Pillars of the Earth’, you will probably like many aspects of this one.

'Five Days at Memorial' by Sheri Fink

Five Days at Memorial; Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, Sheri Fink (4)

This may have to be my last sad non-fiction book for a while. I first heard of this book on ‘The Daily Show’, where John Stewart interviewed the author and highly recommended reading this retelling of the horrific events at a hospital in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina. Though rather long and a bit tough to keep track of all the players, the majority of the book is riveting. The core drama is about the lack of disaster preparedness and the frightening conditions and actions taken by a few staff members of the hospital. Ms. Fink, a former relief worker in disaster and conflict zones, specializes in reporting from a physician’s point of view during such events. As terrible as the situation and the actions of many people were, she tells the story non-judgmentally and from alternating points of view. The first half of the book deals with the events, as seen from a variety of participants. The second half is the ‘reckoning’, the aftermath of all that happened at Memorial and other hospitals in the area. The sadness of this book is not only from the actual events that occurred at this hospital, but of the politics, corruption and incompetence during the aftermath. Some of victims’ families definitely did not get justice for the treatment of their loved ones. This book also makes you consider how different people react during crises and what they use to justify their actions. Given how thoughtful and well educated the doctors in question are, their actions were scary and reprehensible.

'The Bone Season' by Samantha Shannon

The Bone Season, Samantha Shannon (3)

I recently read an article in the NYT Magazine about desperate editors looking for the next ‘Hunger Games’ or ‘Harry Potter’ franchise. ‘The Bone Season’ was one of the examples and I understand why. One of the most surprising things about this book is that it is the first of a projected 7 book series. While it had several interesting concepts, there was hardly enough material to warrant 6 more books! The story is set in a future London where supernatural abilities (such as clairvoyance) exist and are outlawed. One character with remarkable abilities is arrested and taken to a secret prison, managed by supernatural vampiresque beings. There are questions: what are they? How can she escape? Why are the gifted imprisoned? There are also the typical characters: villain, one who seems like a villain- but is really a hero, best friend, evil (weak) peer, etc. The problems with all these are that they are reminiscent of many books (‘Jane Eyre’, Harry Potter’, and even ‘Twilight’) and not as good as any of them.  Occasionally a series will exist where the second book is actually better than the first, but the rule is to wow the audience with the first book in order to secure your readership for the series. I must assume that Ms. Shannon gave interesting outlines for the whole series to warrant the backing of 7 books, but if I read the second one (big ‘if’), it had better come with more.

'Wave' by Sonali Deraniyagala

Wave, Sonali Deraniyagala (2)

I was very surprised that the NYT’s ranked this book in their top 10 for 2013. It is unique, but I did not think it was well written or particularly interesting after the first 35 pages. ‘Wave’ is the non-fictional account of the author’s tragic days during and after the Indonesian tsunami in 2004. She and her family were vacationing on the shores of Sri Lanka when the tsunami hit. The first 35 pages recount how she survived, but tragically lost her parents, husband and two sons. In the rest of this slim book she talks us through how she tried to live during the next 8 years. What surprised me the most was how unlikable she is throughout this book. While I expected to have sympathy for someone who has experienced such pain and grief, and actually felt guilty disliking her, her actions during the crisis and after seemed shockingly self-absorbed. I was most surprised that she didn’t go look for her family in the immediate aftermath. I don’t have children, but I would not have let anyone take me anywhere till I searched the area for my husband and I imagine that is even truer of children. Her protection mechanism of denial (they couldn’t be alive, I can’t look at any dead bodies to identify them or it’s all real) seems to be the only explanation, but that wears thin after 160 pages.

'The Grapes of Wrath' by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (4)

This book could have begun: ‘It was the worst of times, and it was the worst of times.’ There was no respite from hardship and tragedy for the Joads, the book’s central family. That being said, this classic, which describes one family’s escape from the dust bowl in Oklahoma to the imagined riches of California during the late 1930s, is not entirely a tragedy. Through a simple family Steinbeck keenly illustrates the determination of a matriarch to keep her family together and alive. Sometimes it was hard to determine if they were ignorant or innocent, particularly when the advertisement of the end of the rainbow (i.e. jobs in California) was obviously a ploy with all evidence leading to an overabundance of workers for the few jobs available. But it is more likely that they needed to believe in that future, as there was nothing left for them in Oklahoma. Steinbeck effectively uses a unique jump cut narrative where he alternates chapters of the main Joad drama with smaller ones containing background pertinent to migrants as a group. At first this seemed awkward, but quickly felt poetic. While it is not likely that one family met with all the adversity thrown at the Joads, the story brings alive the history of events during the Depression with colorful characters that have survived the test of time. I should add that it has a somewhat controversial ending – both when first written and amongst my friends – though we all agreed it was well worth reading.