This page is dedicated to my new endeavor to rediscover what makes a book, be it classic or modern, worthy of traveling to a desert island with me (were I ever to find myself in that position). I will also be reviewing the books I read love them or leave them. So, here it goes. The first individual pieces to make it on The List are both by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. They are The Wreck of the Hesperus and Sandalphon.
Poetry is and always willl be my first love, that has never wavered, although I find it's been years since I've let the flow of metre and rhyme envelope me. These two poems did just that...they took me out of my home way out in the country of south Georgia and dropped me onto the decks of a ship doomed by it's captain's own pride. and into the arms of the angel of prayer, who is promised to ease my pain by carrying my prayers to God.
This is my first post on literature, keep an eye out for more coming soon.
August 10, 2011
I finished reading two books I have never opened before, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck and A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines. The first novel definitely did not make it on my list for although it was extremely well written with a steady and thought provoking theme and graphic imagery, making it deserving of it's standing as a literary classic, I couldn't stand the main character. I found the protagonist to be waffley for lack of a better word. He was never content with what he had nor did he appreciate it when he had it always looking for the next and better thing, raising spoiled and thoughtless children and then wondering why "there was no peace in his house." Would I suggest this book to others? Sure, give it a shot you might like it where I did not, but I personally found it depressing, uninspiring and definitely not Desert Island List material.
On the other hand A Lesson Before Dying, definitely did make it on my list! It is the story of a young black man who is an innocent bystander in a liquor store robbery gone horribly, horribly wrong. Set in a 1940's Cajun plantation community, and typically for the era, he is found guilty of murder, in spite of his innocence and his lawyer's insane and ignorant defensive stance that Jefferson is the lowest form of existence, not even deserving of the term human and lacking even a modicum of intelligence, and as such is incapable of premeditated murder. The Lawyer's argument? "Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this." Unbelievable! I've never understood how people were ignorant enough to act this way toward each other. The characters were endearing, the prose and imagery made you feel you were really in the cell alongside Jefferson and the Teacher and the emotion like static energy was alive on every page. The theme of the book I believe is summed up in one statement from Chapter 23 "And that's all we are, Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood, until we-each one of us, individually-decide to become something else." I love the turn around in the character of Jefferson who went from believing he was no better than a "hog" to walking to his destiny like a man: with no fear, no begging and no wavering. This is definitely a book I would recommend to anyone and it is going on my Desert Island List!
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