Category: Fiction - BC Reads!

"The Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri

2/12/2014

Title: The Interpreter of Maladies
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Genre: Fiction
# pages: 198
Date published: 1999
5-star rating: 4.5 stars
Would you recommend it: Yes

The Interpreter of Maladies, a Pulitzer Prize-winning a collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, sheds light on the complicated relationship between India and the United States. While some of the stories are light-hearted, others explore more the darker side of these relationships. The short story format allows readers to understand a variety of perspectives, avoiding the stereotype of one particular story or character as India, and the heart of the story lies in the depth of these characters.

Given the focus on character, the stories focus primarily on relationships. These relationships include a failing marriage, a new marriage, a young man new to America and his landlady, an American and her tour-guide, and a young American boy and his older Indian nanny.

Through these twenty-page glimpses, this book captures a culture too often underrepresented in American media. Some stories are entirely set in India while others are set here in Boston. I found that these setting changes allowed me to feel very familiar with some of the stories while exploring the other side of the globe as well. The book touches on sensitive issues including the conflict between India and Pakistan, the treatment of immigrants in America, and the place of women in marriages. The theme of tradition against new culture ties the various stories together.

In short, I would recommend The Interpreter of Maladies as a quick read. It’s also a good book to read as a group, as it is easy for anyone to find a character to identify with in the broad range of stories.

Review by Caroline Grindrod, CSOM '17

"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde

2/4/2014

Title: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Author: Oscar Wilde
Genre: Fiction
# pages: 180
Date published: 1890
5-star rating: 3.5 stars
Would you recommend it:  Yes

            Often considered a classic example of Gothic literature, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray details the consequences of sensual indulgence and uninhibited narcissism. The novel’s title character embodies youth and physical beauty, and is therefore the inspiration for artist Basil Hallward’s latest paintings. Drunk on the adolescent’s intoxicating visage, Basil paints a particularly realistic portrait of Dorian. The painting unintentionally reveals attraction in addition to attractiveness, and Basil therefore wants to hide the portrait from the public eye.

Meanwhile, Lord Henry, a notoriously witty scoundrel, enlightens Dorian about the power and influence that comes with this youth and beauty, and uses his own charm and amusing aphorisms to pervert Dorian’s worldview. Knowing that Dorian cannot bear the thought of losing his handsome features and the associated societal benefits, Lord Henry vocalizes the harsh truth of aging and deterioration, and in an impetuous instant, Dorian wishes to maintain his youthful appearance despite time’s passing; in other words, he wishes to always resemble Basil’s painting.

            The novel then describes Dorian’s descent into Henry’s hedonism and lavish lifestyle. Surrounded by perfumes, fine fabrics, and engrossing literature, Dorian cannot escape indulgence and influence. External forces become internalized, as Dorian begins to speak and act like Lord Henry, vying to preserve his beauty at the cost of his morality. Basil Hallward tries to be the voice of reason and save Dorian from moral decay, but Dorian is too entrenched in debauchery to listen to the self-conscious artist.

Wilde creates a metaphor between reality and art when Dorian finds that the vices he commits in daily life begin to mar Basil’s pristine painting. The youthful gaze that once looked out from the canvas is now sinister, and Dorian comes to realize that the painting assumes the physical mutilation to which his own face is now immune. Though Dorian’s body seems to defy time’s toll, his soul—manifested in the painting—suffers for every sin.

            Wilde plays with art’s power to corrupt, which cleverly adds another layer to the theme, given his medium of expression as a storyteller and an artist. As Dorian sinks deeper into moral degeneration, readers will become frustrated by his continuous inability to resist temptation. While the novel’s ending is predictable, even inevitable, it explores the overwhelming power of external influence and internal desire. With its mix of modern decadence and the harshness of Victorian morality, The Picture of Dorian Gray is both traditional and incredibly bold for its time, as Wilde explores aesthetics, art, and attraction.

Review by Lauren Bly, A&S '15

"To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf

12/2/2013

Title: To the Lighthouse
Author: Virginia Woolf
Genre: Fiction
# pages: 312
Date published: 1927 (Republished in 2005)
5-star rating: 5 stars
Would you recommend it: Yes

            For readers who crave action-based plots and traditional narrative progression, To the Lighthouse will prove to be a frustrating and fruitless reading endeavor, as the entire novel revolves around one action: going to the lighthouse. For the open-minded reader, however, the novel is an overwhelmingly profound and rewarding literary experience. What the plot lacks in physical action, it makes up for in emotional and psychological movement, as Woolf uses a free indirect discourse to seamlessly weave in and out of her characters’ psyches.

            Set at Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay’s summer home, To the Lighthouse fuses natural and psychological elements to explore how exterior and interior spaces interact. Mrs. Ramsay is the novel’s life force, as her beauty and natural authority charm the many visitors who frequent the beach house. Mr. Ramsay is decidedly less vivacious, and his preoccupation with academic and paternal failure leads him to constantly (and often annoyingly) crave sympathy from his wife and other female characters. To say that Mrs. Ramsay is solely a dominant and lively housewife would unfairly reduce her intricate character, and the same applies to Mr. Ramsay and his gloomy necessitousness. Both Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay fascinate Lily Briscoe, a visiting artist who exemplifies the frustration that arises from violently opposing emotions that constantly fight to take precedence. Does she love the Ramsays or despise them? Is art the bane of her existence, or is it her true passion?

            Readers will find that the novel is full of these paradoxes—it is almost impossible to concretely define characters. That liminality makes the narrative dynamic (yes, dynamic) and realistic, because Woolf does not shy away from the volatile and often irrational emotions that shape human experience.

            Woolf finds the pulse of the philosophical, psychological, and artistic Modernist movements that emerged after World War I. While the novel does not explicitly focus on war, it does grapple with the daunting existential questions that resulted from loss and disillusionment. The novel’s three sections act as time markers, with the first section representing pre-modern life and the last exemplifying the anxiety and uncertainty of post-war existence. Characters also convey the shift from the “old way” to modernity. Mrs. Ramsay, the traditional homemaker, embodies Victorian creation; Lily, on the other hand, tries to figure out her role as a different kind of artist: the modern painter.

            To the Lighthouse asks readers what remains after devastating loss. How does one go on after dependability and reliability perish? What is creation, and how long will it endure? With her lyricism, Woolf astutely articulates seemingly ineffable emotions, and her representation of the complexities of the human condition is a beautiful depiction of everyday trials and triumphs in the midst of global tragedy. A novel about the numerous forms of creation, artistic and otherwise, To the Lighthouse is a literary masterpiece.

Review by Lauren Bly, A&S '15

"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

12/2/2013

Title: The Kite Runner
Author: Khaled Hosseini
# of pages: 371
Date Published: 2003
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Recommend: Yes

Kite Runner is a heart-breaking story of betrayal, friendship and atonement of sins. The first chapter is rough; it is hard to understand and there is no context given. However, in the next chapter we meet the main characters Amir, Hassan and Baba. Amir and Hassan are best friends and Baba is Amir’s father. Hassan works as a servant with his father in Amir and Baba’s house. The set up is quite pleasant and they seem happy. However, racial tension arises because Hassan is a Hazara boy, therefore seen as a second-class citizen in Afghanistan. This leads Amir to a sense of superiority. Eventually Amir betrays Hassan. The guilt he deals with becomes a central theme of the story.

This book made me cringe at points because of violence and embarrassment. Amir’s character is well rounded and has a level of depth lacked by some of the supporting characters. However, this lack of depth is caused by the skewed view of them by Amir, the narrator. The author uses foreshadowing to keep interest peaked even during the lulls in the plot. The story crosses boundaries and gives voice to the often-silenced culture of Afghanistan. I read this with a group and it fostered great conversation about duty, patriotism, and our perceptions of the Middle East. Hosseini weaves a beautiful story allowing insight into human nature that transcends races.

Review by Caroline Grindrod, CSOM '17

"The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde

12/2/2013

Title: The Eyre Affair
Author: Jasper Fforde
# pages: 374
Date Published: 2001
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Recommend: Yes

            The Eyre Affair takes us to an alternate-universe England, a place where everyday life offers everything from reverse genetic-engineering to time travel and classic literature is the focus of pop culture. Thursday Next, the novel’s protagonist, is an agent for Litera Tec, a branch of the British government that handles crimes literature-related crimes: everything from high-scale Shakespeare forgeries to black-market poetry-trafficking. In the world of Thursday Next, people are very serious about their literary works.

            Unfortunately for Litera Tec, the antagonist of the novel, Acheron Hades, acquires a new technology and begins dragging fictional characters out of their respective novels and into the “real world” (or the world of The Eyre Affair), including Jane Eyre, as suggested by Fforde’s title.

            On the most basic level, The Eyre Affair is a book about books. But it is so much more than that, spanning several genres, including mystery, thriller, science-fiction and humor, all while retaining a constant ingenuity.

            For instance, the world building in this book is phenomenal. Fforde creates a setting that is at once familiar and foreign, weaving together twisted references to literary, historical and pop culture in our world with the small, odd details of his alternate England to create a unique sense of place. For example, the Crimean War plays a much larger role in the world of The Eyre Affair than it did in real life and the main protagonist’s pet is a re-engineered Dodo bird.

However, these various parts fit together well and, as a person who loves reading, it was both surprising and gratifying to see a world in which the theft of first-edition prose or the appearance of a new play by a famous playwright is an issue of national importance.

            The Eyre Affair does take a lot of effort on the part of the reader. Fforde’s frequent references to historical people, events and literary works left me baffled at first. For instance, when he brought up Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens, I felt I actually had to go look up a plot summary of that book to fully understand the happenings of The Eyre Affair. I then found myself repeating this brief research every five pages or so. While I might have been able to simply skim over the references, much of the novel’s meaning would have been lost, and I wouldn’t have fully followed or appreciated it. Therefore, while The Eyre Affair can take some time and devotion to read, it proves itself well worth the effort.

Review by Julia Walker, A&S '16

"Sometimes a Great Notion" by Ken Kensy

12/2/2013

Title: Sometimes a Great Notion
Author: Ken Kesey
# pages: 715
Date published: 1964
Stars: 5 out of 5
Would you recommend it? Yes

“Sometimes I live in the country
Sometimes I live in town
Sometimes I have a great notion
To jump into the river and drown”

These are the lines that Ken Kesey uses as an introduction in his fantastic 1964 novel Sometimes a Great Nation. Lines from a song by Lead Belly, they work as a concise summary of the novel as well as an opening into its themes.

Although the work tells of logging community in Oregon, the river surrounding the town is what drives the narrative forward. As we see a family of loggers take over, the only force that seems to have any effect on them is the river. This novel is far more realistic than Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but the character of the river is so vivid and almost visceral that it is hard not be captivated by Kesey’s descriptions: the river becomes a character itself.

In spite of this easily discernable, straightforward plot, in which a family founds a logging community and one of its members seeks revenge against his brother, whom he sees as representative of everything wrong about the community, this plot is secondary to the description of the river, to the way that the description of the town and the town’s surroundings engulf the narrative. At certain moments, the characters’ physical experiences are more important than their emotional development. When one of them swims in the river, for instance, Kesey focuses on the water against his skin.

Overall, Sometimes a Great Nation is a fantastic book and definitely recommended for anyone who likes a good (but long) read.

Review by Michael Solah, A&S '16

"This Is How You Lose Her" by Junot Diaz

11/18/2013

Title: This Is How You Lose Her
Author: Junot Diaz
# pages: 240
Date published: 2012
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Would you recommend it? Yes

Simply put, Junot Diaz is incredible. Thrust into the spotlight by his Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Diaz has only confirmed with his most recent work, This Is How You Lose Her, that he writes more beautifully than any author I have encountered in quite some time. The novel is composed of a series of vignettes centered around his main character, Yunior, who seeks only to love and be loved in return. Through the often shockingly honest and raw narrative, challenging in a way a lot of contemporary fiction doesn’t dare, Diaz captures the human spirit. Despite his characters’ mistakes and flaws, you find yourself root for their success anyway.

Love holds together the many and varied vignettes of This Is How You Lose Her: a mother’s love, a father’s love for the son that he hasn’t claimed, the wrong kind of love, true love, the love you lose, complicated love, and love that keeps you coming back for more, even when it tears you to pieces in the process. There is something so irrevocably human about these stories that you can’t possibly pull yourself away. This is the best kind of fiction, fascinating without feeling overly constructed.

I would definitely recommend this book to everyone. Despite its 240 pages, it flies by. Diaz has found the perfect combination of pulling at your heartstrings while remaining entirely relatable with his flawed, but tough and real protagonist, Yunior. If you want a book that will sweep you away into a world that is entirely different—yet eerily similar—to your own, then This Is How You Lose Her is for you.

Review by Molly Saint, A&S '15

"Telegraph Avenue" by Michael Chabon

11/6/2013

Title: Telegraph Avenue
Author: Michael Chabon
# pages: 465
Date published: 2012
5-star rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Would you recommend it: Yes

In the half-forgotten world of used vinyl, Brokeland Records is a hub for classic songs, obscure titles, and memorable melodies. The shop is a haven for its owners, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe, and has become a staple in the quirky Brokeland community. Not only are Archy and Nat business partners, but good friends as well. Their wives, Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth-Jaffe, also work together as well-known midwives in the community. Both couples learn the challenges that come with mixing their personal and professional lives, as each pair realizes the growing disparities in their professional ideals and personal ambitions.

When Brokeland Records faces a possible overthrow by a modern chain store, Archy and Nat are divided by the differing extents to which they want to fight for their retro refuge. Aviva and Gwen also discover tension in their relationship when a doctor directs a racist comment toward Gwen, and the scene quickly escalates to an intense verbal exchange between the hospital doctor and midwife. The confrontation then threatens to ruin Gwen and Aviva’s accreditation as midwives, and Gwen must decide what is more important to her: the practice or her values. Matters intensify when fourteen-year-old Titus arrives in Brokeland to steal Nat’s son’s heart and remind Archy about the past he chose to neglect. Needless to say, Telegraph Avenue does not skimp on complicated life decisions and complex relationships.

While the novel conveys the myriad tensions that arise from love, race, marriage, economic pressure, and life itself, the various plotlines and motifs, at times, feel underdeveloped and unresolved. Furthermore, the abundance of obscure music, comic book, and film references can leave readers who do not share those passions feeling excluded. The sheer number of allusions, when paired with the length of the novel, would sway even the most ambitious reader from looking up every arcane detail, and therefore it is sometimes difficult to find a foothold. Still, there are moments of profundity in Telegraph Avenue, and those moments are especially poignant because they effectively address real, universal concerns. It is for those moments that readers should explore Chabon’s novel and ruminate about the issues he addresses and why it is that, despite the novel’s length, he must leave them unresolved.

Review by Lauren Bly, A&S '15

"The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein

12/4/2012

Title: The Art of Racing in the Rain
Author: Garth Stein
Genre(s): Fiction
# pages: 320
Date published: 2008
Rating (out of 5 stars): 4 stars
Suggested tags: Quick Read, Fiction
Would you recommend it? Yes!

Do you ever wish you could read your dog’s mind? Well, The Art of Racing in the Rain finally gives you an inside look. Enzo, the prime pooch of this heart-warming story, tells it all from his perspective, from puppy-hood to old age. He is raised by his master Denny, a racecar driver, along with his wife, Eve, and daughter, Zoe, in their Seattle home. Although he is “just” a pet, Enzo truly is a fourth member of the family. Even through a birth, a death, a debilitating illness, and a crippling court case, Enzo is unwaveringly loyal to them all. Stein weaves a truly bittersweet tale that will have you reaching for tissues at times, but smiling by the story’s end. (Continued below)

You don’t have to be a dog owner to enjoy this book, though! It is hard not to fall in love with Denny and Enzo, a dynamic duo both at home and on the racetrack. While the dramatic parts of the plotline can be tearjerkers, the story has many more happy moments than sad ones. Enzo is extremely intelligent, and his philosophies are well thought-out and pretty darn funny. I loved his outlook on a dog’s life after death, which he learned from watching a documentary on television. (It certainly makes you wonder what your own dog is learning from shows you tune into on TV…) All in all, if you’re a dog lover and you have the need for a speed-read, you will not be disappointed.

Review by Kristie Dickinson, CSOM '14 Illustration by Patrick Hughes, A&S '14

"The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green

10/23/2012

Title: The Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
Genre: General Fiction, Young Adult Fiction
Number of pages: 313
Date published: January 2012
Rating: 5 stars (out of 5)
Recommended? Yes

Oftentimes, young adult fiction is full of books that are pure entertainment: novels about teens and partying, high school romantic affairs, and, of course, an abundance of drama. What’s more rare is a teen novel with substance; a book with both an entertaining story and meaning. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is one of those unique stories. We get a look into the life of Hazel Lancaster, a 16-year-old girl with thyroid cancer, which has unfortunately spread into her lungs. Hazel is surviving and able to live her life to some extent, yet she realizes that her disease will soon finish her off.

While the book is told from the perspective of a cancer patient, it is not the typical “cancer novel.” Hazel attends a weekly support group, which she usually dreads, until she meets a 17-year-old osteosarcoma survivor named Augustus Waters. Hazel and Augustus immediately form a bond, growing close through their witty personalities, life experiences, and An Imperial Affliction, Hazel’s favorite book by Peter Van Houten.

The Fault in Our Stars is a beautiful, funny, heartwarming, and upsetting book that will leave readers laughing and crying in equal measure. The aftermath consists of thinking about life in a much deeper way. The characters are vivid, lifelike, and instantly relatable. Readers will form bonds with them, rejoicing in their triumphs and worrying along with them in the toughest moments. The language itself is easy to read and understand, yet it is simultaneously witty and elegant. Particularly special to The Fault in Our Stars is that it can be read for literary value as well as entertainment, containing many popular references and powerful meanings to uncover, as well as important life questions to consider. People of all ages, though particularly teens and young adults, will love this beautiful book, which will leave an enormous impact on whomever chooses to read it.

Review by Caitlin Mason, A&S '16