Fable Review

This book was a chore to read.  (And yes, I realize there is not a picture of yarn above, that is because this one is rated a big fat zero.) I was determined to read the entire book no matter how difficult it became and I did it.  What was it about?  I really am not sure I can tell you.  Mr. Faulkner and I don’t speak the same language.  Half of the time I was reading something and thought, “What does this have to do with anything?  Why is this happening?”  He tends to go on and on and on and on.  His sentences last half a page and there were a few paragraphs in this book that lasted 5 pages and by the time you finished the paragraph you can’t remember what he was talking about because it just kind of rambled on.

This book was supposed to be a Fable about the life and death of Jesus Christ.  There were moments in reading it that I recognized the characters and who they related to in the Bible, but I’m still not sure what some of the things I read had to do with the story of Christ.  The story takes place during WWII and is mostly in France.  It starts out telling about a troop of soldiers and they were commanded to attack and they mutinied against their leader (I can’t remember if he was a captain or a lieutenant).  Their leader goes to the general and they end up putting the leader under arrest.  After that there are random stories about pilots in Germany and a man who stole a racehorse in Louisiana.  There are some women in the story that represent Mary Magdalene and I could understand the parallel there.  

I could tell you more about the book, but like the book it would be jumbled and disjointed so I’ll spare you.  If you want a challenging book then pick this one up, otherwise I would suggest skipping over this one.

Old Man and the Sea

 

 

X 5

(our computer died and I lost my yarn clipart and can't find it again, so until I do, this will have to do-actually I kind of like this, maybe I'll keep it.)

 

I’ve never read a book by Hemingway and so I was a little nervous to read this one, but I was pleasantly surprised.  It was an enjoyable book and not because it is short, (it is only 127 pages) but because the main character is easy to like and is inspiring.  

It’s about a fisherman named Santiago from Cuba.  He is a lonely and very humble man.  He has one friend, a young boy named Manolin.  Manolin cares for the old man very much.  Santiago taught Manolin to fish but was unsuccessful for a time and so his parents decided that Manolin needed to fish with a someone who could bring him more fortune.  Manolin still comes and visits the old man every night where they talk about American baseball and Joe DiMaggio, their favorite player.

One day Santiago goes out to do his regular daily fishing trip and gets a giant marlin on his line.  He cannot pull the fish in so he lets the marlin pull him out to the sea for two days and two nights when he finally tires the fish out and is able to kill him with his harpoon.  During those two days and two nights you learn of the man’s respect for the great fish.  He also displays great determination and patience.  I know if it had been me I would have cut the line and gone home, but Santiago stays with the fish.

After he kills the marlin he attaches it to the boat and starts to go home.  He has no idea how far away from home he is but is able to know the right direction to go.  As he’s going home the fish is attacked by sharks.  He is able to fight off the first shark with his harpoon but he loses his harpoon.  He makes a new harpoon with the oar and his knife and uses that to kill more sharks.  He kills five sharks, but it’s not enough.  There are so many sharks coming to attack the marlin that he can no longer fight them off and the sharks eat the marlin leaving only a skeleton.

When Santiago finally makes it to shore he leaves his skiff and goes home to sleep.  Many fisherman gather around the skeleton and measure the backbone to be 18 feet long.  Manolin is so worried about his old friend and is so happy when he finds him asleep in his hut.  He cares for him when he wakes up and they talk about fishing together again.  There are some tourists who are eating at a local restaurant who see the skeleton of the fish and think it’s a shark.  The book pretty much ends there.  I usually like an ending that wraps things up nicely but it didn’t bother me so much in this book.  I like thinking that the tourists buy the large skeleton and helps Santiago to live comfortably through the remainder of his life.  

I highly recommend this book, especially if you want to read a classic novel but are intimidated by the length.

Caine Mutiny

I know it's a little surprising to see so many balls of yarn for this book, but it was excellent.  This book is right up there with my favorites.  I was really nervous to read this book and one reason was because I thought it would take place more in the Victorian Era, which would make it more difficult to read.  But this book actually takes place during World War II.  I know I've said this many times, but I am a character reader and Caine Mutiny is a character book.  There are many characters, but not too many to keep track of and the author does a great job of developing these characters.

It is the story of a young man named Willie Keith.  He was raised in a very well-to-do home; his mother especially spoiled him.  He goes to Princeton and then decides he'd rather play the piano in night clubs than go on to do any more schooling or any serious job.  He kind of has a very laid back attitude about everything.  While starting a new job at a night club he meets a singer named May Wynn (that's her stage name) and they start a courtship and soon fall in love.  He doesn't want to be drafted into the army so he enlists in the Navy.  While he is in the Naval Academy the love story continues and he kind of strings May along because she wasn't raised in the same class as Willie and so he can't seriously consider marrying her, but he doesn't want to give her up.  She on the other hand enrolls in school and tries to improve herself so she can fit in with his crowd.  Willie starts out as kind of a smart alec in the naval academy and gets into a lot of trouble, but just before he gets kicked out he buckles down and graduates as one of the top of his class.  He then gets assigned to a minesweeper ship, the Caine.  He's not excited about it, but does his duty.

It then goes into life on the ship and what his first captain is like (Willie doesn't like him at all).  You get to know a lot of the crew members and a little feel of what the Navy is like.  Before long a new captain is assigned to the ship, Captain Queeg.  Willie is very happy about this because of his great dislike for the previous captain.  So much happens to them on the ship and I don't want to write about it all, but you soon learn that Captain Queeg is a little weird and has some mental problems.  One of the crew members, Lieutenant Keefer starts putting it in the Executive Lieutenant Maryk's mind (he's the assistant to the captain) that Captain Queeg has mental problems and can't function as the head of the ship.  Lieutenant Maryk begins to keep a book of all the things that Captain Queeg does that shows his mental handicaps.  One of them is a strawberry incident where the Captain searched the entire ship and all the crew members for keys because he was sure that someone snuck into the fridge and stole his strawberries;all this after someone told the Captain who ate the strawberries.  The Captain also runs from battle many times and stays cooped up in his room most of the time eating ice cream and most of the time he has two little steel balls that he rolls around in his hand.

During a massive typhoon Captain Queeg makes some decisions that Lieutenant Maryk felt weren't right and then Captain Queeg just kind of shuts down and doesn't give any more orders even though the ship nearly capsizes several times.  Lieutenant Maryk then relieves Captain Queeg of his duties and Willie Keith and one other officer, Stilwell, begin to follow Maryk and ignore the Captain.

The next part of the book talks about the Court Martial to determine whether they were justified in relieving the Captain of his duties. This part of the book was just as enjoyable and exciting to read as the time they spent on the ship.  I'm not going to tell you the outcome though; I really think you should read this book so I don't want to give anything away.

During all of this Willie Keith and May Wynn keep their romance going, and even get engaged, but right before the court martial Willie decides he needs to break it off with May. 

After the court martial, Willie and Lieutenant Keefer go back to the Caine to finish out the war.  Just as the war ends Willie becomes the Captain of the Caine and brings it back to the United States for it to go to the junk yard as it's a really old and beat up ship.  When he gets home he decides that he really does want to marry May and so he goes and finds her.

The actually mutiny and the verdict of the court martial are actually a little anti-climatic.  If you weren't paying attention to the book you just might miss them.  But the build up and the aftermath of each are exciting and interesting. 

It also paints an excellent picture of a boy and how he matures into a man through his experiences in the Navy.  The author mentions his appearance several times, but mostly you see it through his decisions and his actions throughout the book.  I came to really like Willie and saw him as a good Naval Officer.

Another reason I loved this book was that throughout the book it would mention Willie Keith or Lieutenant Keefer were in their rooms reading books like, Bleak House, one of my favorites.  They were often reading literature that didn't fit into their surroundings.  I thought that contrast was great.

Sometimes I read these Pulitzer books and wonder, "why in the world did this book win?"  I didn't wonder that at all with this book.  It was well written and so enjoyable to read.  Sometimes a good book is like a drug and I definitely had a good buzz when I finished this one.