The Name of the Rose

My mum had been constantly  recommending this book to me until I finally physically picked it up and started reading it. Since she doesn’t recommend books to me very often, I felt like I had to read this one because it must be good if she liked it so much. And it was, it was just very difficult to get into at first. From the blurb, I originally thought that the book was going to be a detective story, with murders and clues and puzzles. It was a detective story, but it was also so much more than that.

Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, is set in an Abbey in the Middle Ages and goes to great length to describe the religious history at the time. That was, by far, the more interesting aspect of this novel, even more interesting than the detective story aspects. I found the history fascinating. It was so interesting to read about the different aspects of Christianity and the different types of monastic orders which exist. I also learnt about how easy it is to be branded a heretic (I mean, being burned at the stake for saying something mild about Christ is rather scary to think about) and that religious inquisitors (the people who would put suspected heretics on trial and decide punishments) had absolute power.

The main character, William of Baskerville, is amazing. He values logic and common sense and uses these to solve the crimes occurring at the Abbey (I’m sure Eco used Baskerville as a nod to Sherlock Holmes). Even though he is deeply religious (he is a monk after all) he shows himself to be a free thinker from the things he says and how he behaves. In one chapter, some of the monks are talking about how women are evil and in league with the devil, which was a little offensive if I’m honest, me being a woman and all. William, however, argues that if that was true, God would not have given women the ability to give birth to man, so they can’t be all bad (thanks Wil!).

The story is told in a memoir, first person format by Adso, who was a novice at the time of the murders. He, as well as the reader, learns a lot from William, like how important it is to think about things carefully, and that it's ok to make mistakes as long as you can improve yourself by them. The writing style was interesting, but Adso spends a lot of time describing things and listing things. Usually I love descriptions, they help me to get a much better picture of what everything looks like in my head, but Adso just took it to a whole new level and sometimes the narrative was a little tedious. However, I have to say, that in general, I really enjoyed hearing about the events (so to speak) from Adso's point of view. He is so innocent and he struggles with aspects of his religion as he tries to discover what he wants from life. I liked this because I felt like I was also able to go with Adso on this personal journey, which was nice. 

The murders themselves, whilst perhaps not the most prominent aspect of the novel, are exciting and dangerous. The murderer is not revealed till the last possible moment, and trust me, you'll never be able to guess who it is or why they did it. I think Eco is a master mystery writer in this sense, he keeps up the suspense till the last possible moment. There is this kind of audible reaction, like "ahh, that's so clever!" and "I didn't see that coming!", once the mystery has been solved.

So now I'll end with a quote which really stood out to me: "In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro" 

Which translates to: "I searched for quiet everywhere, and found it nowhere except in a corner with a book." And if that doesn't ring true to all you bibliophiles out there, then I don't know what will. 

Reading Challenge Update

As it’s still January I think I’m still allowed to fill you in on my progress with my personal reading challenge. I don’t know if you remember, but two years ago (2013), I decided to record all the books I read in that year. At the end of the year I had managed to read 44 books. Last year (2014) I repeated the challenge with the aim to improve on the number of books I read. And I managed it because I read 53!

I guess neither 44 or 53 is an exceptionally great amount to be proud of, especially since I am a self-confessed literary addict (it would be more impressive if I had read several hundred, but I haven’t, so there). But, in my defense, being at university for 40 weeks of the year really doesn’t give me enough time for reading. I’ve also noticed that most of the books on my list were read during the holidays because I have more free time and can spend it with my nose in a book.

For the last year now, I have been setting myself little monthly goals. I try to read at least one book a month and I set time aside to read at least one chapter every day. This makes sure that I don’t get too swamped with work and that I give myself the chance to relax. I used to read every night before bed, but lately I’ve been way too tired for that. Now I just try to read between classes. So if I have a class that ends at 15.15 and one that begins at 16.00 that gives me 45 minutes to read, and I can get through quite a few pages in 45 minutes.

I hope to continue with recording all the books I read in the year because even if I don’t manage to beat my record from the previous year, I still enjoy looking over all the books I've read and thinking about how good (or bad) they were. And if that makes me a nerdy sad-o, so be it! 

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum

Since I really enjoyed reading Max Frisch, I decided to pursue some other German authors. My friend (the same one who recommended Frisch to me in the first place) suggested I read something by Heinrich Boll. The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum is a really short novel (about 115 pages) but so much happens in such a short space of time. I found the narration to be rather different from other books I’ve read. The whole thing is written like a police report, stating the facts and providing the transcripts of suspect interviews after the events have occurred. I thought this was a really cool way of setting out the narrative because it enabled me to solve the crime (so to speak) along with the police officers.

The book is about Katharina Blum (I bet you guessed that right?) and the injustice she faces at the hands of the media after she has an encounter with a man wanted by the police. The newspapers ruin her life by besmirching her reputation. Because of this she gets a little crazy (which might be an understatement) and ends up killing a reporter. Readers learn of this murder from the get go. The narrative then goes on to explain why the murder occurred in the first place, why Katharina's name was dragged through the mud and how she ended up committing this crime.

The book was so short and the narrative so compelling that it didn’t take me long to get through. The prose was addictive and I found myself reading it rather greedily. That, for me, is the mark of a great story. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some more of Boll's work!

Hector and the Search for Happiness

I was given this book for Christmas from my brilliant and amazing friend, the same friend who’s been recommending all those German authors I've been posting about (ok that's an exaggeration, it's only been two). 

We had watched the movie at the cinema before the Christmas holidays and I enjoyed it so much. Simon Pegg’s in it and so it was obvious that I was going to love it because he’s a great actor and I’m a massive fan. Like seriously, I’ve watched quite a lot of things he’s been in and his TV series, Spaced, is on my top 10 best TV series list.

Anyway, because I liked the film so much (here's the trailer if you're interested), my lovely friend bought the book for me. I started reading it and couldn’t put it down, I managed to finish it in a day. If I’m honest, it’s not that long of a book and the prose is very simple, so it wasn’t much of a challenge to breeze through it. Plus, the plot is very entertaining and it makes for a very enjoyable read. I usually hate (!) reading books after I’ve seen the movie because any surprises within the novel don’t have the same impact because I know they’re going to happen! But, in this case it didn’t really matter that I had already seen the film because the book, as often happens with book to film adaptations, it’s not completely the same as the film. 

The book is about a psychiatrist called Hector who decides to go and travel the world in order to see what makes people happy. He meets a lot of colourful characters and learns a lot about what it means to be truly happy. I don’t think anyone can read this book and NOT have a smile on their face by the time they reach the last page. Even though the writing style is very basic (almost childlike), there is an element of ambiguous-ness. For example, the author, Francois Lelord, doesn’t explicitly mention what religion he's referring to in this excerpt:"Hector asked them what their religion was, and it turned out that it was the same as Hectors! This dated back to the time, long ago, when people of Hector's religion had occupied their islands, because at that time they tended to think that everything belonged to them." I think it's pretty safe to assume that he's talking about Christianity. I found this method of writing to be rather clever and entertaining because it was fun to work out what it was exactly that Lelord was talking about.

What made the whole reading experience even better is that my friend had annotated the copy with her thoughts on certain passages (some of the comments she made are bloody hilarious!), and she had underlined quotes that she thought were the most illuminating. Here are some of the quotes she highlighted which I think are really interesting: 

• "The basic mistake that people make is to think that happiness is the goal." 
• "It's one thing thinking something and another thing knowing it."
• About dictatorships: "Their whole country was like a bad family which didn't look after its children properly."
• "Hector was intelligent but not necessarily smart."
• "Knowing and feeling are two different things, and feeling is what counts."
• "We're very concerned about polluting the air, but not about polluting our children's minds."
• One of the rules I try to live my life by: "Happiness is not attaching too much importance to what other people think." 
• "But that's science: it isn't enough just to think a thing, you must try to verify whether it's true."

So, all in all, I don't think this is the best book I've ever read (or the best book I've read this month even), but it was really lovely and had some truly inspiring and noteworthy messages to share. Best of all, it's always going to remind me of a great and loyal friend (sounds proper cheesy but it's the truth).

Brave New World

This book has been on my reading list for years, but I've finally managed to read it. Feels like a major achievement when you can tick a book off your reading list. Brave New World is one of those super famous books that nearly everyone has heard of, even if they haven't actually read it. So I guess you could say that I had high expectations. And it's always a wonderful feeling when your expectations are met.

Brave New World is so very, very good. It's one of those books that just stay with you for ages afterwards because it gives you so much to think about. The most notable thing about the plot is the way society has changed into a scary, social class focused nightmare. No body has children anymore, instead babies are formed in test tubes, so words like 'mother' and 'father' have become taboo. People are encouraged to have multiple relationships and children are raised in factory like settings. Indoctrination is rife, hallucinogenic drugs are commonplace, and genetic engineering plays a major role in the structure of society.

I found the plot intoxicating. The ideas that Huxley presents of the future are both clever and frightening at the same time. His description of the way people are 'born' in the future shocked and angered me, but also fascinated me in a purely scientific way. I initially thought the writing style was a little strange because it's not particularly sophisticated. But, after reading the novel, I do have to admit that the writing style works well considering the main themes of the novel and the pace of the plot. Overall I think Brave New World works really well as a dystopian novel. It's exciting, full of surprises, and genuinely makes you think "What? How does that even work?" at several points in the narrative. If it's been on your reading list for a while, I suggest you make the effort to read it soon. And if it's not on your list, why not?!

Homo Faber

Since 2015 has just begun (Happy New Year by the way) I wanted to share one of my favourite books I read in 2014: Max Frisch's Homo Faber. It was recommended to me by a dear friend of mine (a fellow book enthusiast) and so I had high expectations. It didn't disappoint! And, now I know I can trust her book recommendations :)

Now, even though it was a brilliant novel, it did take me a while to get properly stuck into it. I thought the beginning of the novel was a bit too random. It started off with the main character getting on a plane, then the plane crashes, then some other stuff happens, and finally the narrative takes off in the direction that it's 'supposed' to go in. I say 'supposed' because Frisch doesn't really talk about the plane crash again, so I don't really see what that has to do with the story as a whole. Maybe I'm just missing something?

But once I had got past that little hurdle, the story sucked me in and I finished in two evenings. I just couldn't stop reading! I enjoyed the plot, but I think my favourite thing about the novel as a whole was the fluidity of the writing style.The story is written in first person and here it is very clear to see what a talented author Frisch is. I sometimes find that authors are not able to write well in a first person narrative because it soon begins to sound limited. But first person narratives can be great because they allow readers to walk side by side with the narrator; we only know what he/she knows. Frisch seems to be completely at ease with this style of writing.

This type of book is something which I call a 'contradictory novel'; nothing much really happens, but yet so much does happen! I love these kinds of books, so it's no wonder that I enjoyed Homo Faber so much. Some of my favourite books of all time are 'contradictory novels' (bare in mind, this is not an official term, I made it up). Books like The Catcher in the Rye, The Bell Jar and The Stranger, where nothing much happens and yet the narrative is fast paced.

I loved Homo Faber. So I guess it comes to no surprise that when I found another Frisch book (it's called I'm not Stiller) a few days ago, I got so very excited and had to buy it at once! I can't wait to get stuck into that one. I'll let you know what I think about it once I've finished reading it...