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.

The Town

This book was such an enjoyable book after the last few that I have read.  It had nothing to do with the military and was about the frontier.  I do love me a good frontier book.  This book is the third in a trilogy; the other books are The Trees and The Fields.  Someday I'm going to read all of them. I really liked this book.

It is a story about the Wheeler family and their role in settling a new town.  The town originally was named Moonshine Church, but they wanted to be the county seat and so decided a new name would be better and came up with Americus, Ohio.  Mr. Wheeler was an attorney and later became a judge.  He came from a wealthy family in the East and for some reason or another (we never really find out) he had to leave his family and come West and that's where he met Sayward who became his wife.  They had 9 children:  Resolve, Guerdon, Kinzie, Huldah, Libby, Sooth, Dezia, Massey, and Chancey.  There are stories that go along with all of them.  One becomes the Governor of Ohio; another brother is accused of killing his wife's lover and has to go on the run; one daughter runs away and is found by a man across the river and lives with him for a couple of days before her mother comes and gets her; but the one that is spoken of the most is Chancey.  Chancey was born rather sickly and never really comes out of it.  Instead of running with the other children he usually is found sitting in his father's office looking out the window.  He seems to have some heart troubles and so can't be really active. 

My favorite story that they tell about Chancey is the time his father was helping a newlywed couple with some legal trouble and they were invited to sleep at the Wheeler's house.  Whenever someone was invited to sleep at their house (and this happened often) they slept in the same bed as Chancey.  Before the couple come up to bed, Chancey's older brothers tell him he needs to sleep in the middle or else the bed will flip over so Chancey plants himself in the middle of the bed.  Chancey's mother also tells the couple that Chancey has heart problems and can't be bothered while he's asleep or it could kill him.  So the couple goes up on their first night together with a little boy in the middle.  The husband keeps trying to reach over to his bride and she makes him stop because she's afraid they're going to kill the little boy.  The husband finally gets so frustrated he sleeps outside on a bench and the bride stays in the bed.  It becomes a joke that Chancey slept with the new bride.  There are other stories to do with Indians coming and taking Chancey away to raise him that frightens the boy out of his wits.

As Chancey grows up he meets a girl named Rosa.  They become very good friends.  Rosa is actually Judge Wheeler's daughter from a time when he took advantage of the school teacher.  Nobody talks about it and Rosa is banned from the Wheeler house.  Judge Wheeler doesn't even take notice of her and he doesn't do anything to help care for her.  The school teacher becomes a shut in.  She was once very beautiful but now she doesn't ever leave her house, all she does is stay inside and read.  She is married and has other children, but they live very poorly while the Wheelers live very well.  Chancey knows the secret, but Rosa never finds out.  Chancey and Rosa become very good friends and eventually fall in love with each other.  Many things are done to try and keep them separate and tragedy happens  so they cannot ever be together.  Chancey grows up to be a very bitter and hateful young man and does everything he can to ruin his relationship with his family.

Chancey moves away to Cincinnati and writes for a paper that goes against everything his family believes and even writes mean things about his brother, the Governor.  He has a secret subscriber that keeps his paper going, but then the money stops at the same time his mother starts to get very ill.  In the end of the book Chancey's paper runs out of money and he is forced to move back home to help take care of his mother.  It shares his insights into who he thinks his mother is and it's all wrong.  He then finds out that his mother is the secret subscriber and that she alone has helped run his paper for many years.  He then realizes that his views of the world are all wrong and tries to figure them out, but it's too late for him to ask his mother anything because she can't speak or hardly move.

Overall, even though there are sad parts I really enjoyed this book.  I love the writing style of Conrad Richter, it's almost poetic.  He doesn't have to give all the little details, but through dialogues you find out everything you need to know.  This was a relief after the last few books I've read.  I found this book to be an enjoyable read. It has humor and sadness and at the end of the book I felt sad that I wasn't going to be a part of the Wheeler family any more; to me that is a measure of a good book.

Way West

I was kind of excited to read this book, I really enjoy stories of pioneers and thought this one would be like others I have read; I was wrong.  It was an unusually written book, written in first person, but skipping from character to character.  There were many times I wasn't sure who was thinking or speaking, especially in the beginning.  It was really like a Charles Dickens book, where you don't understand what the people are saying and then about 1/3 of the way into the book all of the sudden you realize that you're actually understanding what is going on.  The book is about a group of people who leave Missouri in hopes of finding a better life in Oregon.  Each of the families is different.  The main family is a man, Lije Evans, his wife and their teenage son.  The other members of the party had all kinds of views, and many of them weren't really cut out for traveling in covered wagons and were more fit for cities and politics.    Lije Evans soon leads the train and does a great job and learns that he is a leader, something his wife knew all along.  Just a warning at the beginning there are parts where you delve into some of the minds of the older men looking at a beautiful young lady; it's not real bad, just enough to make me a little uncomfortable.

They of course meet with many dangers and sad events, one time loosing a young child, (which was an extremely sad part) and an act of adultery.  Soon you see how tough the people are and even though I didn't think it was possible in the beginning, you come to care for the families that finally made it to Oregon. 

The Evans' friend Dick Summers was probably my favorite character.  He was a rough, tough, true cowboy.  He had lived many years as a trapper and knew the land and territory and also the Indians well.  He gave up that life and married and settled down in Missouri.  His wife died (this part was a bit confusing) and so he decided to help the group travel to Oregon.  While on the trip he realized that he wasn't ready to give up that lifestyle and continues on after the other people in the group settle.

Overall, it wasn't my favorite book ever.  It was good, but I felt it dragged on a bit.  It felt like we were forced to hear what happened everyday, even though it gets a bit monotonous.  

Guard of Honor

What is another word for boring?  I just looked it up and some of them that fit this book are tedious, dull, mind-numbing, wearisome, uninspiring and tiresome.  Can you see how much I enjoyed this book?  I almost stopped reading it in the middle and thought about writing in my review that I just couldn't read on.  When I reached page 100 and knew I had 531 pages to go it felt like I was fighting an uphill battle.  The thing is this book had so much potential to become something interesting and to have a plot, but then it would falter.

The book is mostly about the behind-the-scenes of the military during WWII.  It focused on the AFORAD army base in Ocanara, Florida and mostly centers around the general of the base.  I'm not sure what AFORAD stands for, something about the Air Force Operations, it doesn't really exist.  The book starts out on a flight back to Ocarana with lots of characters, almost too many to keep track of.  I couldn't keep one apart from the other, except the one woman, Lieutenant Turck.  As they come in to land they almost run into another plane that is landing at the same time.  This other plane happens to be flown by an African-American bomber group coming to the AFORAD base as an experiment in integration. Unfortunately one of the officers from the original plane gets upset and hits the African-American pilot.  Because of this incident a lot of racial problems occur, but it doesn't really go anywhere and there really isn't a resolution; it just kind of hangs there in the background.  If this book centered on the racial tension in the army (the army didn't officially discriminate against black soldiers, but segregation was still culturally normal) it would have made for an interesting story. Instead it was just like a teaser.  The book would talk about it and then switch gears and focus on something else.

There is also talk of a big celebration taking place  on Saturday-  I think it's to celebrate the general's birthday.  I should take this time to let you know that this book happens over three days.  That's right, three days .  Thursday goes from page 1 to 88, Friday from page 89 to 286 and Saturday from 287 to 631.  Those are some long days.  And those days are spent in meeting after meeting with so many different characters you easily lose track of which officer is which and which rank is which.  I think that if someone had served in the military, especially during this time period, then they might find it interesting to read about all the meetings they had and all the conversations that took place.  Unfortunately, I have never served in the military or have a real knowledge of how military life is and so I found it dull.

As the General's birthday celebration approaches there is some more racial tension when the  African-American bomber group decides to go to the Officer's Club and they are not welcomed in.  They get arrested and they have to figure out how to cover it all up because some of the leaders in Washington, D.C. aren't happy.  Thus follows more meetings to figure out what to do and who was there when it happened and what their stories are, and blah, blah, blah.  Admit it you're even bored just reading my review, aren't you.

After the celebration commences there are some guys who jump from the planes to make a big show.  A group of officers are watching close by so they can write about it and see one of the soldiers break both his legs when he lands.  Then they notice about seven more soldiers land in a lake.  They weren't wearing life jackets and so they are assumed to have drowned.  Of course, we never find out if they were drowned and who was responsible for the soldiers not wearing life vests because this book is all about not having any resolution. 

There was one character who I enjoyed whenever he would come up, which was often.  His name was Captain Nathaniel Hicks.  He worked in the Public Relations Department and was all around a good guy.  He lived with two other officers, one a devoted husband and one a lady's man.  Captain Hicks was married with children and he talks about in the book how he would never be tempted to cheat on his wife because he loved her and it just felt wrong.  Unfortunately, he doesn't follow this and at the end of the book ends up sleeping with Lieutenant Turck (from the airplane).  I was so disappointed.  He is then called up and ordered to go back to New York (where is wife and kids live) to work on a big project for the General.  I guess he gets what he deserves.

All in all, I'd say stay away from this one.  Of course, I'm sure at this point I don't need to tell you that.

Tales of the South Pacific Review

I was really excited to read this book.  I love the South Pacific and have some ties to it.  My Grandpa served a mission for our church there and then later in their lives my Grandpa went back with my Grandma and served again.  At the same time my Grandpa was there my husband's Grandparents were there serving a mission.  It is a place I feel a connection to and that I want to visit some day.

Tales of the South Pacific are short stories of WWII and people serving in the South Pacific Islands (obviously).  Each story isn't  completely disconnected from the others because there are a few characters that pop up in several of the stories.  One soldier makes appearances through the whole book. 

The stories that tell about army life and what they had to go through to fight battles during the war are so interesting. Those stories speak of what they ate and how many of them didn't have enough to do to pass the time and were very bored and had to find other things to keep their minds sane.  Some of the chapters talked about battles that they fought and how many lost their lives.  Other stories share the personal struggles that some faced as they were away from their families and had seen so much sadness and a different part of the world so foreign to the one they came from.  I think one of my favorite stories is about a small island that they need to build a landing strip on.  The officer who is sent out there to inspect the island and find the right spot gets to know the people there and the history.  It was really neat to hear about these people and how they live on this isolated island away from civilization.  Also on this island there used to be prisons from a previous war and you get a little glimpse of the island's history.  If the book only contained these types of stories I would have given the book 5 balls of yarn, but it didn't.

The stories that shared how men couldn't control themselves with the native women, how they had to clear an entire island of all the women and move them to a separate and more secluded island to save them from the American soldiers raping them, how some soldiers fell in love with the women and then after being intimate with them flat out refused to marry them because of the color of their skin (I know it was a different time and era, but if they could just keep it under control…) and left them behind with a broken heart.  It's these kinds of stories that made me not enjoy the book.  It made me think of something that my Father-in-law shared about the time when he was waiting to be shipped out for the Vietnam War.  The chapel on the base in Southern California where he shipped out from had a sign that said, "War is Hell.  Leave your conscience here and we will keep it safe for you".  I understand that these men were on a secluded island far from their wives or their girlfriends for many, many months, but it did seem that they left their conscience behind and lived for the moment.  I was rather disgusted with these stories and they left a bad taste in my mouth.

All The King's Men Review

I started this book knowing I was going to hate it.  I don't enjoy politics or I should say politics turn me into an ugly, angry person and so I just stay away.  Knowing this book was all about politics made me not anxious to read it and I knew I would not like it.  But as you can see from the number of balls of yarn I gave it I ended up liking it. 

I thought it was going to be mainly about politics but I think it was mostly about human nature and how choices lead our life.  Politics was an underlying theme and did have a lot to do with the book, but I felt that the people in the book and the choices they made were the strong parts.

One of the main characters (Jack Burden - he's the one that is telling the story) began his career as a newspaper journalist and met Willie Stark when he was just beginning his career as a politician.  Willie Stark was kind of a good 'ol boy and was used in an election to distract votes from another candidate.  It fired him up and he became completely involved in politics.  He hired Jack Burden as his right hand man and made it all the way to governor.

You begin to learn about Jack Burden and his view of life.  He tells of a love affair he had with a girl he grew up with and how they were practically engaged and then it just fell apart.  She comes back into the story in a huge way and because of choices made, tragedy happens.

As I said in the first paragraph, the small part of politics that it talks about in the book is the dark side of politics.  Lots of bargaining and threatening so that those on top can get what they want.  I think we all know deep down that this is how politics work, even if we don't want to.  But mostly this book is about people getting caught up in their career and forgetting who they are.  Willie Starks made some rotten choices when he thought life was easy, but when something hard happens to their family he realizes the error of his ways but it's a little too late. 

I did enjoy this book and even though the characters weren't endearing to me like in other books I've read, I was interested in them and their actions made me think.  I think this was and continues to be a pivotal book in American history.

Bell for Adano

This was another of the Pulitzer prize books in the Young Adult section and besides the language I think it is a good one for the genre.  This book is set in a little town in Italy called, Adano.  The United States army comes into the town to help restore it after World War II is over.  Major Victor Joppolo comes into the small town and calls a meeting of the town leaders who stuck around.  The country was led by a fascist, Mussolini, who ran away as their side was loosing the war.  When he asks them what the town needs most to recover there are opposing ideas.  One man says they need food and the other says they need a new bell for the town.  Everything in the town is run by this bell, it is their clock.  The Major decides to try to get them a bell (he also makes sure they have food, of course) to help bring up the moral of the town.  While he is there he meets many people in the town who are great characters; this book has a lot of those.  You really come to love this small town and the people in it.  I think mostly you come to really care about Major Joppolo or as the people in Adano call him, Mister Major.  He is truly full of compassion and wants to help this town so much.

At one point, a man who had had too much to drink was driving his cart along a major road.  This town lived by their carts.  They had carts bringing in food and water, and taking away waste; anything that this town needed was brought on these carts.  Well, this poor man was going so slow he made a US army jeep carrying a man by the name of General Marvin go really slow.  The General has a very bad potty mouth and demands that they kill the mule and so his soldiers have to carry the order out.  The Italian is very confused by this, he knows the Mister Major who everyone in the town comes to love, and yet another person in the same army did a very cruel thing.  The General also demands that no more carts can come on the road anymore.  When Major Joppolo hears of this he overrides the General's orders and allows the carts to come in, otherwise the people of Adano could not survive.

Major Joppolo does so much for this town.  He gets the men fishing again and overall just helps the town become restored.  The people truly loved him.  They threw a big party for him and had the local artist paint a picture of him.  The other officers of the army saw what a great guy he was and tried to hide the fact that the Major didn't follow the General's orders, but the General eventually hears of it and orders Major Joppolo to be relieved of his duty.  This was very sad.  I really admired Major Joppolo and saw that he had a big heart and a strong desire to do his job and help these people.  It was disheartening that the General won out in the end, but not before the Major finds a new bell for the town and hears it ringing as he is driven out of town.  You gain mixed feelings for these two men who are on opposite ends of the spectrum.  The General is a hard, ornery man who cares for no one but himself and Major Joppolo is a kind, generous man whose only care is what he can do for others.  I think this is one of my favorite Pulitzer Prize books that I have read.  It was overall light-hearted and as I mentioned before full of great characters; I just wish that there wasn't so much swearing in it.

Journey in the Dark

.....and I'm back.  Sorry about the absence, it isn't because I haven't been reading, just not posting.  I have several reviews to post on here so keep checking back here often!  Now on to the book review...

  

This book was good.  That's about all.  It was a nice story of a man who came from nothing and built up his wealth, married (and divorced) the girl he had always been in love with, married a girl he had loved for years but never realized, had a son, a big house and then lost it all and realized how he had taken it for granted.  It was an enjoyable story, but for me it was not life changing.  The man made some poor decisions, but it was great to see how he rose above the tough situation he came from to make something of himself.

He was raised in a home with a very loving mother and a strict, unloving father.  He always thought that they were well enough off but one Christmas he wants a nice sled and his sister tells him he won't get it because they're poor.  When he realizes this he feels embarrassed, especially around the girl he is in love with who comes from a wealthy family in the town.

He leaves high school because his mother dies and he has to help support the family. He works his way up to receiving telegrams at the railroad station and delivering them.  He moves on to become a paper salesman and then joins up with a guy who runs a wallpaper factory and makes it a great company.  He retires a multi-millionaire. 

All his life he just wants to be rich and thinks that is all there is to life, but as he looses his second wife and his son leaves him to marry a Jewish girl he realizes that his big house and his property are not important.  After his home burns down, he moves in with his sister and begins to work at an airplane factory building things with his hands and finds great satisfaction in this job.  He reconciles with his son just before he dies in the war, when his plane gets shot down. 

Overall, it was an enjoyable book but neither did it really move me or make me think too deeply.

Dragons Teeth

I have put off writing this review for a couple of weeks because I've been unsure what to say about it. The first half of the 600+ page book seemed a little pointless and drawn out. I think that the author was trying to build the relationship between the main character, Lanny Budd, and his Jewish friend, Johannes Robin. It is a story of a well off American man, the before-mentioned Lanny Budd, who marries the richest woman in America, though I can't remember her name. They live in Europe and know lots of famous and rich people; one of them is Johannes Robin who is a wealthy Jewish businessman who lives in Berlin. The first half of the book tells of them going on a cruise with the Robin family (he has two sons, one is married to Lanny's sister, and they all have different political views which they talk about a lot). It also tells about parties they go to and people they meet. One of the people they meet is Adolf Hitler. This was the only interesting part of the first half: to learn a little bit about where Adolf Hitler came from and the kind of person he was. When they met him he was building up the Nazi party and starting to get a lot of support in Germany. He eventually does gain power and takes over Germany and then that's where it gets interesting.

They plan on taking a cruise on the Robin family yacht to get away from the terror of Germany and how the Jews were being treated, especially the sons of the Robin family. One of the sons was a Communist and the other a Socialist, both of which the Nazis hated, besides the fact that they were Jews. They waited a long time for Johannes to arrive with his yacht but he never came. They soon found out Johannes had been arrested and taken to a prison camp. Lanny and his wife decide to go into Germany and use their many contacts within the Nazi party to get Johannes out.

He meets with two high power Nazi officers, Paul Goebbels (these Nazi leaders were real men) and also Hermann Goring two of the most evil men on earth. He gets in good with them, even going on a hunting trip with Goring. He finds out from Goring that Johannes didn't submit the correct paperwork to take money out of Germany (which in fact he did) and that was why he was arrested. In order for Lanny to get Johannes out he had to give all his money, his palace and his yacht and Johannes would leave Germany with nothing but his life. They agree to this (they didn't have much of a choice) and got him out safely. While they were trying to free Johannes they were in contact with Freddi Robins, Johannes' son. They soon lost contact of him and found out after getting Johannes out of the country that Freddi had been arrested and taken to Dachau, one of the worst pre-war concentration camps there were.

Lanny felt a need to get him out. As he talks about it with his wife you find she is sort of a Nazi sympathizer and doesn't like the Robin family because they are Jews. She doesn't understand Lanny's hatred of the Nazi party. She is kind to the Robin family, but when it comes down to it she doesn't like them as much as her husband, even to a point where she doesn't want Freddi's son to play with their daughter. Lanny feels responsible and decides to go back to Germany and get Freddi out.

He gets in contact with some of his Nazi friends, those on the lower levels, and makes a plan with one of them to get Freddi out. I don't want to give the details in case you want to read the book, but their plan goes awry.

I enjoyed the second half of the book very much. I am not a history buff; to show my ignorance I didn't realize that Communists and Nazis weren't the same thing. This book was fascinating to me. I've read other books about WWII and concentrations camps, but they have all been from the Jewish point of view and usually they take place during the war. This book is from a complete outsider and ends before the war even begins. I learned a lot and even though at times I felt it was pointless to read, I'm glad I stuck with it, in the end it was worth it.

In This Our Life Review

I'm not quite sure what to say about this book. It wasn't the best or the worst book I've ever read, it was just so-so. It's a story of a family told from different points of view. Mostly it is from the viewpoint of the dad, Asa. He has been stuck in a loveless marriage for over 30 years and all that he wants is to escape from it and move out to a farm with his friend, Kate. His wife, Lavinia, is an overweight hypochondriac who delights in making her husband's life miserable. She never leaves her bedroom and complains and talks all the time. Asa feels that he needs to stay with her so that someone is there to take care of her and bring her food and medicine. The other thing keeping Asa around is his children. He has two daughters, Stanley and Roy, (yes that is right) and a son named Andrew. Andrew is married to Maggie and they have three kids. They have a great marriage and are fine and really aren't a big part of the book at all. When the book starts out Roy is married to Peter and Stanley is engaged to Craig and their wedding is coming up. A couple of days before the wedding Stanley and Peter run off together leaving Roy and Craig both heartbroken. They each take it in a different way. Roy is very strong and doesn't want to be pitied. When she is working or at home with her family she is fine, but at night she cries and doesn't sleep because of her dreams of Peter. Craig just kind of loses it, he becomes a wreck. When Roy and Craig meet up a few months later they begin to help each other over come their heart ache and soon fall in love.

Meanwhile, in Boston Stanley and Peter aren't doing so well. Stanley writes her mother telling her that she and Peter fight all the time. Soon Peter commits suicide and leaves Stanley heartbroken for a short time. Stanley is the kind of girl that demands things. She wants the best of everything and expects it to be handed to her. Lavinia (Stanley's mother) has an uncle, William, who is the wealthiest man in town and he kind of doted on Stanley and bought her whatever she wanted; this is where Stanley gets it. Stanley is a beautiful young woman and gets lots of attention for her good looks and she knows how to use them to get what she wants. She doesn't mourn long for Peter and is soon restless and wanting to go somewhere besides their city of Queensboro.

I don't want to give the book completely away but other sad and hard things happen with Stanley. The night Asa decides he's going to leave Lavinia and move out to Kate's farm something terrible happens with Stanley and Roy that makes him change his mind.

It was a good story, but the people in the story just think way to much. They can't get over things or move on with things because they just think and analyze WAY to much. I just wanted to say "stop thinking and go do something!" It kind of drove me crazy.

There was a paragraph in the book I wanted to quote only because it was funny and doesn't in any way reflect how I feel about my marriage. It is Uncle William's wife, Charlotte, who is analyzing her marriage and life. This is what it says "Charlotte, who knitted without looking at her needles, did not answer immediately. At the moment, she was busily wondering how women could have survived marriage throughout the ages if knitting had not been invented…" I just got a kick out of that. Again it doesn't reflect how I feel about my marriage or why I knit, just so we're clear on that.

I enjoyed the book but I am not anxious to read it again and like I said earlier there was too much thinking and analyzing and not enough action.

Grapes of Wrath

Yes, I only gave this four balls of yarn. Why? Because it is really sad. I've read this book before and honestly I think I enjoyed it more the first time. It was hard for me to read this time around.

It's a story about a family, the Joads, whose farm is taken away from them and they are forced to move on. They hear that workers are needed in California and how great it is there so they plan on leaving. When they start out there are 13 of them on their truck. Along the way they loose four of their family to death or other ways. Two of the family members are Rose of Sharon and her husband Connie, and Rose of Sharon is pregnant. Connie is one of the people they loose along the way, he wandered off and never came back. After many days on the road they finally make it to California. Along the way they meet people who are leaving California and warn them that there are too many workers and not enough work and that the wages that are being paid are not enough to feed a family on. They discover this for themselves and can't find work. For part of the time they live in this great government run camp where they have hot water and toilets and people are kind to them, but they run out of money and there is no work so they have to move on.

Lots of sadness follows them and they try to stick together as a family, but can't. One son, Tom, who was just released from prison for killing a man at the beginning of the story is hiding out because he killed a man to defend his friend. To keep his family safe he runs off. Their other son, Al, meets a girl and decides to marry her and he wants to work in a garage, which let me sidetrack a little bit here. This is something I thought a lot while reading this book. Why don't they go to the city and find a job in a garage. Both Tom and Al are really good with fixing cars, they both could get a job there I'm sure and have some money come in. It wasn't until the end that I realized that these people were farmers and working on the land was the only thing they knew to do, that's why.

Alright, back to the story. In the end, well I don't want to tell you the end. You'll have to read it for yourself and if you have read it, you understand, don't you.

One thing that stuck out to me that didn't before, was that these people were people. Let me explain. The first time I read it I think they were just characters and I didn't connect with them, this time I saw them as people. I could almost see their faces and realized that they were just trying to do what was best for their family. They were treated worse than the animals by the people in California (I do understand why, in a way) but they were just people trying to make their way. I try to imagine if that were me and my family and I'm amazed by the strength that their mother showed through all their trials, trying to feed their family, her daughter being pregnant and her husband running off, trying to find a place to live. Just trying to find the basic necessities in life. I feel that sometimes I take these things for granted. Or I drive by homes that are bigger than mine and I think "my life would be better if I lived there" (which it wouldn't be because then I would have to clean more!). I have everything I need right here in my home, to take care of my family. We have a roof over our heads, food in the fridge and cupboards, clothes to wear, a heater in the winter and a cooler in the summer. I think sometimes we focus on the fancy things that we don't NEED, we just WANT. One thing the Joad family had, thanks to their mother, was love for each other and I think that is what got them through the trials.

This book has made me realize how blessed I am. Yes, I don't have a large closet full of designer clothes, or a big fancy car, or a fancy phone that I can get on the internet with or listen to music. I don't even own an iPad! But I have what I need and that's good enough.

The Yearling

This book has made me think harder than probably any of the Pulitzer books I've read. That seems strange, doesn't it? A simple book like The Yearling hardly seems thought provoking but for me it was. It is a simple story about a young boy, Jody, who is lonely for companionship and longs to have a pet of some sort. After his father, Penny, shoots a doe, Jody rescues a fawn and makes it his own. He loves the fawn and it is his constant companion. The fawn grows up and is no long a yearling and begins to destroy the crops that Jody's family relies on for food and money so he is told he needs to go out and shoot it. Jody can't and so his mother tries and misses and just wounds him so Jody has to put the deer out of his misery. Jody runs away and grows up himself. At the end his father tells Jody that he is no longer a yearling himself but grew up while he was away.

The story is good, but it's not the part that got me thinking, it's the reading of their everyday life. Jody and his father go hunting a lot to get meat for the family. They talk a lot about what they eat on a daily basis and how they gain it and how they preserve it for the winter months. As I read along, not only did I have the desire to go out and shoot a deer and then smoke the meat, but I wondered is this how life should really be? They worked hard and they had to in order to survive. The planting and plowing were a necessity and in the end when they had a good crop it was a reward for all their hard work. They were together, Jody learned good work ethics, he learned right and wrong in the fields, and the love that he and his father had for each other was so strong because they spent this time together. Again, I wonder is this really the way life should be?

I'd like to teach my children good work ethic but I don't know how. We have a small garden ,but we don't rely on it and I can hardly get my kids to stay out there to help me weed. Maybe it's bad parenting but I can't seem to get them to want to work and to realize the importance of it. Maybe we should have a week or a month where we only rely on our garden to survive, and then we'd all die of starvation probably, I'm not that good of a gardener. I wish that my family could be together all the time, that my kids could run off in to the woods and explore and play. I wish that I spent my day doing things that my family needed so that they could be healthy and live comfortably, all with my hands. This would be a good life.

I spent a lot of time wondering this while reading this book, and decided that I'm probably romanticizing these ideas in my mind. That life would be hard and dirty. And I realize I do like to be able to run to the grocery store and buy some marinated artichoke hearts if I wanted to. I like to be able to run my dishwasher and have clean dishes and my washing machine and dryer and have clean clothes. I also like having all my teeth (something Jody's mom couldn't claim). So how do I find the balance? I guess that's something I'll have to spend my life trying to find. In the meantime, I'll dream of a life in the woods, living off the land, and working my fingers to the bone while I eat some marinated artichoke hearts.

Late George Apley

This was just about the most boring book I've read in a long time. I've never been to Boston, let's just get that out of the way. So if you've ever been to Boston, or know someone who lives in Boston, or if you have money to burn or come from a wealthy east coast family then you might like this book.
I've said before that I'm a character reader. I like books with good characters; I feel it's more important than a story line, and this book had neither. George Apley was not an exciting man, he had his own little world and he lived in it very happily. Nothing exciting really happens. You think he's going to break with tradition and marry a girl outside of their social ring but then his father kind of makes it so it couldn't happen and later George marries a girl inside their social ring. They have the perfect life in a big house and are very concerned about the rose bushes in the front. They have a boy and a girl. And he likes to go bird watching (this is the only way I related with the character, because I too am a birdwatcher) with a lady friend (and she's only a friend). His children rebel and go along with the times and George has to conform to it and he does so quite well, better than his wife. His son marries outside the social circle and I was proud at how well George accepted her and welcomed her into his home even though he had a little disappointment in his son's choice.
All in all it is a book I won't read again and I probably won't suggest it to someone, unless they were a Kennedy.

Gone With the Wind

I have to start by admitting that in the beginning I wasn't completely thrilled to read this book. I've seen the movie and it was cheesy; how could the book be any good? Well, I think this book is one of the best written character books I've read. The story and the characters pull you in. I've thought a lot about how I could review this book, I'm sure there are many reviews of it so what can I say that is different than the other reviews? Probably nothing. I've decided that I would break it down into more of a character review.

Scarlett O'Hara - Scarlett is one of those characters you want to strangle. At the beginning of the book she is a spoiled little brat that has to have her own way. She is in love with Ashley Wilkes, but he is marrying someone else. Even in the beginning you can see that she doesn't understand Ashley and that she and he are completely different; he just fills an ideal. In the middle of the book where she had to leave Atlanta when it was under siege and go back to Tara, I thought so much of her. She was such a fighter and wasn't going to back down from anything! She worked hard to put food on the table for everyone, she took charge, she was admirable. When she needed the tax money and decided to be Rhett Butler's mistress things went down hill. She married her sister's fiancé and became a business woman. Again she was a fighter but this time she was fighting for selfish things, money in particular. She had no regard for anyone else and was once again a brat. When her second husband died and Rhett proposed to her she then turned into the most selfish human being. This is when I wanted to strangle her, I knew she loved Rhett but she wouldn't give up Ashley and then when she finally realized how much she loved Melanie and Rhett and that she didn't love Ashley it was too late. Such a sad ending, but she kind of deserved it.

Ashley Wilkes - I think Ashley is a bit of a wimp. I'm not impressed with him at all and knew for a long time that Scarlett didn't really love him. They had absolutely nothing in common, I think they were just both in love with the past, when life was careless. They were each other's link to that time of their life. He was an intellectual and had lots of book smarts but no common sense. After the war and he had lost all his money and his land he had nothing. He couldn't support a family and gave in to Scarlett and Melanie (his wife) too easily.

Rhett Butler - I know that I shouldn't have liked him as much as I did. He really is a dirty, lying, cheating scoundrel. He loved Scarlett though, truly loved her and was truly hurt by her. He did all he could for Scarlett , Melanie and Melanie's Aunt Pitty Patt. He knew what a good person Melanie was and recognized it. He had so much passion for those he loved and respected and the rest he treated as fools. I think he liked to push people's buttons. He first met Scarlett when she declared her love for Ashley on the same day Ashley became engaged to Melanie, the war started and Scarlett became engaged to Charles Hamilton (she married him to try to make Ashley jealous and he was Melanie's brother). Rhett fell in love with her right then. When Charles dies and Scarlett moves to Atlanta to live with Melanie and Aunt Pitty Patt, Rhett shows up on and off and helps them out. He tells Scarlett he's not a marrying man and tries to get her to be his mistress, Scarlett turns him down but he doesn't give up. He finally gives in after Scarlett's second husband dies and proposes to her on the day of the funeral. He spends his life trying to make Scarlett love him by pampering her and giving her whatever she wants. Scarlett has a baby girl and Rhett realizes that Scarlett doesn't love him and gives up on her (they actually begin sleeping in separate rooms) and turns all his attention to their daughter. When their daughter dies in a tragic accident, Rhett falls apart and leaves Scarlett just when she realizes that she never did love Ashley, or at least she hadn't for a long time, and that she really did love Rhett. It broke my heart, not so much for Scarlett because she's an idiot, but for Rhett. He really did love Scarlett and did everything he could to show her and to win her love. He had to live with the knowledge that Scarlett loved someone else (or at least she thought she did) and in the end when Scarlett finally comes to him to love him he is so tired and so sad that he doesn't want to deal with it. Maybe I took the wrong side of this story but this is how I felt.

Melanie Hamilton Wilkes - What can I say about her except she is the most loyal friend that anyone could ask for. Scarlett did not deserve her. After Ashley left for the war Scarlett stayed close to Melanie so that she could be close to Ashley. A couple of times Scarlett and Ashley met up in secret and declared their love for each other and when Ashley refused to run away with Scarlett she never showed her love for him again (in the physical sense). Scarlett saved Melanie's life when Melanie had a baby on the day that Atlanta was being raided and they had to evacuate. Scarlett took Melanie, Melanie's new baby and their servant to Tara (after Rhett abandoned them on the road so he could join the army). She fought when they arrived at Tara to keep Melanie and the baby alive, she made sure they had enough to eat. So because Scarlett did all this Melanie became a devoted friend to Scarlett and stood by her even when the city of Atlanta was accusing Scarlett and Ashley of having an affair. Scarlett hated Melanie until the day Melanie died and then she realized that Melanie was the best friend she had.

These are the main characters of the story. Of course, there are many others but I won't go into all of them. Gone With the Wind is an epic novel and even though it is over 1,000 pages it keeps you involved and interested the entire time. I don't think at any point I was bored and anxious for it to end. I always judge a book by how I feel when it is over. If I'm happy it's over than the book wasn't that great for me. If I mourn the loss of the companionship of the characters from the book than that book goes on my favorites list. I mourned the loss of these characters and thought of them often after I put the book down. I enjoyed Gone With the Wind and highly recommend it as a classic everyone should read.

Honey in the Horn

This book was rather refreshing to read. After the last few books that have all been sad and a bit depressing this book had none of that. It was a good old Western novel. It is about a young man named Clay who has a strange family history and is taken in by an old man who loves to tell stories. When the book first starts it seems that this man will be the main character of the story and that he will go on and on about these old stories, but thankfully it only lasts for the first chapter or so. Well, this old man has a couple of sons who are bad kids and law breakers, but have outsmarted the law until now. His older son was killed and the younger son was arrested. The older man goes to Clay and asks him to help break his son out of jail. Clay who is a bit of a hard and ornery young man agrees to help. He passes a gun to the guy in jail and then takes off. He becomes a sort of outlaw running from the law. At one point he sees a young girl who is traveling with a horse racer (who is her father) and he kind of falls for her. Luckily they meet up again and he travels with them. This girl, Luce, and Clay kind of fall in love. They both have secrets: she doesn't know that he helped a man escape from prison, and he doesn't know her secret, which is tied up in his secret. But they are happy not knowing each other's secret.

They go along traveling and working in different places. They have a fight and then get back together and become even stronger and leave her father and mother (they are strange in their own way) and go out on their own. At one point she becomes really sick and is afraid for him to leave her but he knows that he can't help her so he leaves her to go find someone to help her, but she told him that if he left her when he came back she wouldn't be there. He leaves anyway and comes back and she is gone. He goes on and works odd jobs and eventually they meet up again and stay together.

This book didn't "move" me or make me think real hard about life and things, it was just a good story and was enjoyable to read. I learned to like Clay, even though at the beginning he's kind of a stinker, in the end he is a good guy and does care about people around him.

Now in November

I've been thinking a lot about what to write about this book, not because it moved me to ponder much but mostly because it DIDN'T move me. It's a story about a family with three girls, a mother, and a father. The father gets laid off at a factory job so he decides to farm. They have to mortgage their farm and this is like a monkey on their backs. The girl, Margret who is the middle child, is the narrator and she often refers to the mortgage as something they have to bear and constantly worry about. The father sounds like an unfeeling, over stressed man. He doesn't seem to care for his girls and is so worried about the farm and all the work that comes with it that he rarely seems happy at all. Luckily his wife is a kind, loving woman who makes up for her husband's lack of emotions. The oldest daughter, Kerrin, is a nutcase, seriously. If I had a psychiatry degree I could diagnose her problem for you, but I don't so all I can say is "cuckoo". The summary on the outside of the book says that she wishes she was a boy, I didn't get that at all. To me she just seemed like she needed to escape the farm and fall in love and go away to a big city where there is lots of excitement and she would kind of blend in with the crowd. As it is she is stuck on the farm and to me it seemed she hates the farm and all the work that goes with it. She becomes a teacher in the nearby town but gets fired because she isn't really teaching at all and is very short wit the students. That's kind of the second to last straw for her. Then the narrator, Margret, is kind of a plain Jane who no one really thinks of but everyone likes. She does her chores and helps out the best she can. The youngest is Merle; everyone loves Merle. She is very quiet and kind and apparently beautiful. A young man Grant comes to live with them and help their Dad work on the farm. Kerrin and Margret fall in love with Grant, but Grant falls in love with Merle and Merle won't have anything to do with Grant in that respect. In fact, Kerrin tries to make a pass at Grant and he didn't respond and that was the very last straw and she ends up running off with her Dad's knife and kills herself.

The family has lots of hardships as the depression comes on. It describes the months of no rain and how it affects their farm and their livelihood. One night a fire breaks out on their property and they all run out to put it out and while they're doing that their mom catches fire and later dies from those injuries. There are stories of neighboring farmers who also have nothing. One is a family who is renting a farm and just can't make ends meet to pay the rent and they are kicked off their property. It's a sad view of life during this stage of the depression and what they had to endure and how they had hope that it would end soon.

I only gave this book two balls of yarn mostly because it was sad, and I think I'm tired of reading sad books. It was also written very abstractly. For the first third of the book I wasn't sure if I was reading about the present or past. Near the end of the book I began to understand the writing and really started enjoying it and then it ended. It was hard for me to feel engaged or to care about the characters. The only character who caused me to feel anything was Kerrin and she only made me uncomfortable. I actually bought this book because it was so hard to find here, but I think it might be one I'll give to the Friends of the Library for the book sale, not my favorite.

Lamb in His Bosom

I have dreams, one of the things that I dream about doing sometimes is living in the middle of nowhere long ago, before modern conveniences and living off the land. Well, that dream is no longer there after reading this book. This book centers around one woman Cean (said see ann) and her life. At the beginning of the book she gets married to a good man named Lonzo and they are heading to their new home, a brand new cabin built in the middle of the Georgia woods. Cean is young (I don't remember if it tells how old she was, but I think she was around 16 or 17), but she is excited about the prospects of her new life coming up. Her husband is good to her and they are quite happy and seem to have everything they need. She is soon pregnant with their first and it spends a lot of time on how she feels being pregnant and then the horrors of delivery. She is not anxious to have another but soon conceives and bears another daughter. After her second child is born she returns to her happy free self until she becomes pregnant with her third which she is not happy about. The story that got me the most happens when her third child, a son, is born. Lonzo is away to the coast where he goes once a year for two weeks to trade their goods from their farm for other things they need. She went into labor early and worked through it for the day with her two daughters running around. It is so hot that the little girls are not wearing any clothes and they have the windows and doors open. As night falls she puts the girls to sleep on her bed (again not wearing any clothes, it's so hot) and around midnight she bears her son. She is so exhausted, for obvious reasons, that she lays on her bed with her newborn son and begins to fall asleep. She remembers that she left the windows open but decided she didn't need to worry because the hound dogs were quiet. Of course, right then the dogs started howling and she realizes that the mountain lions (or painters as she called them) could smell the blood from the delivery of her son and were drawn to her house. She gets out of bed to close the windows and the door, and after she does she turns around only to find a mountain lion in her home standing between her and her newborn baby and two older daughters. She grabs the gun and shoots the mountain lion and then climbs into bed. It made me thankful for hospitals and epidurals and that I don't have to worry about wild animals coming into my house. Also, I've been imagining the scenario and realized that there were probably flies everywhere, so it makes me also grateful for screens on my windows and door.

Times goes on and she ends up bearing around 16 children. The reason I gave this book three stars was because it is so sad. She is surrounded by sorrow and death. Her brother is an adulterer and leaves his wife to go to California and his wife marries his brother. Her parents die and another time Lonzo is gone to the coast she has 14 or so children at this point her house burns down in the middle of the night and she has to take her 14 kids and walk 6 miles to her parent's house to stay until Lonzo could come home and build them a new house.

This book cured me of ever wanting to live in the wilderness. In my mind it sounds so ideal. Surrounded by nature, living off the land, working hard to provide for my family, the only sounds are sounds of nature, etc. But this book brought me back to reality and what it really means, bugs everywhere, wild animals, no air conditioner, no dishwasher or washer and dryer, no lights that come on with the flip of a switch, no running water straight from the faucet , and most importantly no flushing toilets.

There was one thing that struck me about this book. Cean loved her children very much, it showed in how she grieved for those she lost and how she thought about her children, but I don't think she enjoyed them much. At this time her children were there to work for her, her oldest cooked the meals and cared for the younger children, the boys worked out in the field for her husband. She didn't have time, like I do now, to stop and play with her children to tickle them and tease them. I love being with my children, talking to them, laughing at their jokes and just learning who they are. This is another thing I didn't think of. Like I said she was so busy doing her work, cleaning, spinning cotton for clothes, cooking, and caring for the animals that it consumed her time and all those children were a burden to her because they were mostly girls, which meant they couldn't be out in the field helping their father. Another thing that I'm grateful for living in this time is education. She did know how to read, but she had never gone to school and neither do her children. Well, actually they did for a few short weeks until she developed a grudge against the new priest who was running the school (she actually marries him later on) and then she pulled them out to make a point. I'm glad that my children get an education and for the opportunity to see them learn.

This book opened my eyes to reality and how much I do have to be grateful for, so maybe I should give it five stars instead for doing that for me.

The Store

I'm still not sure what to write or think about this book. It is a gray book. The main character Colonel Miltiades Vaiden is a gray person. By this I mean he is honest and brave but he's also domineering and highly prejudiced, which is according to the time and place that he lived. This story takes place shortly after the Civil War in Alabama. Colonel Vaiden was the leader of the Klan where he lived and also ran a cotton plantation where he was in charge of all the slaves. The book starts by telling about how after the war ended he didn't have any prospects of being great; he's married to an overweight woman named Ponny (he married her for money which he never received), and he is very poor and living in a shabby house. The whole town is anxious for Grover Cleveland to be elected as President of the U.S. because he's a democrat and they think he will help the economy of the South. On the other hand, all the African Americans there are afraid that they will have to be slaves again if a democrat is elected to office.

Col. Vaiden has a mortal enemy named Mr. Handback. Years before Col. Vaiden's family had a great cotton harvest and "sold" it to Mr. Handback in the morning of the same day that Mr. Handback declared bankruptcy and the Vaidens were never paid the money they earned. They blamed this incident of why Co. Vaiden had a lack of prestige and income. Col. Vaiden, however wants to start a store and goes to work for Mr. Handback in his store to see how it is done. All the African Americans go to him at the store because he's honest with them. He will give them a pound of bacon if they ask for it and Mr. Handback asks him to stop. This is the most irritating thing about the book-- the treatment of these ex-slaves. It really opened my eyes to the struggle that they had after they were set free and what they had to go through to make a voice for themselves. Even though they were free, they were still treated like slaves and the older men and women felt they had to continue to act this way to live a happy life.

Meanwhile we are introduced to Gracie Vaiden who was a slave for the Vaiden family and her son, Toussaint. We find out that Toussaint is actually the Colonel's son, though neither of them know it. The night before Col. Vaiden was to be married to a rich girl, Drusilla Laceback, she ran off with another man. In his rage, Col. Vaiden rapes Gracie and she becomes pregnant. Poor Gracie. She was a "companion" for a captain in the army (this is who Col. Vaiden thinks is the father of Toussaint) and for Mr. Handback. She is barely dark at all, there is so much Vaiden blood in her and Toussaint is almost completely white. He dreams of moving to the North where he believes he could live as a white man and no one would know.

While Col. Vaiden is working for Mr. Handback he basically steals all of Mr. Handback's cotton and sells it. He makes over forty thousand dollars, then for some reason after he gets the money he goes to confront Mr. Handback. By this time Mr. Handback already knows what happened (he originally thought the cotton had washed away in a big rainstorm) and they get into a fight. A young law student (I forgot his name, sorry) comes and tries to help them come to an agreement. Col. Vaiden has to spend the night in jail. The next morning the young law student comes and tells the Col that he only has to give Mr. Handback ten thousand dollars and sign a document that he won't press any charges and they'll forget the whole thing. After he gets out of jail thinking he got off pretty free he finds that his wife had a miscarriage and died because she was frightened by the sheriff and Mr. Handback who were looking for the money and digging in their back yard. He's really not too saddened by Ponny's death and is now wealthy.

All the while the Colonel has a nephew who came to Florence to go to college and he is boarding with the Colonels brother and his wife. Jerry (this is the nephew's name) is odd. He declares he is an atheist and has a desire to reach a higher power. He knows that if he can overcome certain emotions, such as, lust, anger, revenge, that a wise man will come to him and tell him the secrets of life and he will be elevated to greatness. Unfortunately he meets Sydna Crowninshield who is Drusilla's daughter. He falls in love with her even though she is a few years older than him.

Well, the Colonel begins to buy property and buys the old plantation that he used to run (the Lacefield's, all these families are intertwined) from Mr. Handback because he is broke and needs to sell things off. The Col puts Gracie and Toussaint out there to run the plantation and they do a great job of it. So the Colonel thinks that now that he is wealthy and has all this land and he also opened a store in the town that Drusilla will marry him. He begins to go to the Crowninshield home to get back into their good graces. I need to mention that Sydna always looked to the Colonel as her protector. She was told by her mother that the Colonel was there when Sydna's father died on the battlefield and asked the Colonel to look after his daughter, so she admired the Colonel greatly. When the Colonel asks Drusilla to marry him she refuses and he finds out that she believes her daughter is in love with the Colonel so he asks Sydna if she is and if she would marry him and so she does. It never tells how old he is, just middle age and Sydna is in her mid-twenties, but they do get married. At one point I thought Jerry and Sydna might run off before the wedding, but they don't and she marries him.

At this time Mr. Handback is depressed because he is so poor and losing so much money. He goes to Gracie and asks her to run away with him to Mexico where they could have a normal life together. She is about to, but tells him that she let the Colonel hide the money he stole from Mr. Handback in her house and he gets angry at her betrayal to him and he goes out and kills himself. Toussaint meets a young school teacher and marries her and they begin to run the plantation.

The young law student and Mr. Handback's son accuse the Colonel of not having the correct deed to the land and so he's about to loose it. The postmaster, who is a character in himself, but I feel like this is getting too long so I won't go into him too much, approaches the Colonel and tells him he was visited by someone who was dead and had a message for the Colonel that what he needs is in the cash drawer. The Colonel goes to his store and searches his cash drawer but there isn't anything in there. The Colonel now has to sell off some belongings to make up for the money he owes to everyone. He goes to the plantation and tells Toussaint and his wife, Lucy, that they need to bring all the farming tools to town so he can sell them. They go to the young now attorney (he passed the bar) and they file a suit against the Colonel saying that he was going against the contract. This enrages the town and they go to court. The ending is strange and I think a little strained. It didn't make a lot of sense to me. The town freaks out about two thieves who the Sheriff brought in and puts in the jail. These thieves are alluded to throughout the book, but they never actually come into Florence, so I'm not sure why they are all so angry about these two men. But they attack the jail, but Toussaint is in there awaiting the judge's ruling on his suit against the Colonel. The town people are waiting for the Governor to leave the town so they can lynch these two thieves, around four o'clock. Gracie goes to the Colonel and tells him that Toussaint is his son and they go to save him from the jail but are too late. They see three men hanging from the tree. While the Colonel is grieving and thinking over the events of the day one of Mr. Handback's clerk comes to him and says that he was going through Mr. Handbacks documents and found the deed the Colonel needed in the cash drawer.

The story of this was good. It was very unpredictable. As I was reading I thought I knew what was going to happen, but something entirely different and rather strange would happen. The whole story of Jerry and his enlightenment seemed to be a strange character for the time and place that this novel is set. I think that it was interesting to read the social change that was slowly coming through this book, but irritating at the same time at the white men who felt that the n-----s (yes, this is what they called them through the whole book) shouldn't be educated because nothing good could come from it and that they should be kept in their place of manual labor for the white man. It makes me admire those of the African American race who stood up for themselves and made a change.