5 to 1

Number one on the list 100 Must Read YA Books in Verse.  I don't think it was rated as the best book, just simply the first in a long list.  It was a good, quick read and the subject was something I had never read about before (though I saw, once, a documentary about India's girls so I can see the seeds for such a novel).  I won't get into the wherefore's here.  Just suffice it to say I am grateful that I do not live in India.

Again, (referring to After the Kiss) this novel is told from the perspective of two people, the female in verse the male in prose.  It is another really neat way of differentiating between the two as well as perhaps defining the characters (I'm not saying between sexes, but between personalities).
So, this story is in our future, the year is 2054, so not too far.  India has run out of women and chaos has ensued.  A closed off city has been built to protect what is left of the girls, and a new society is born.   With the ratio of five boys to one girl, there are competitions to show the suitability of each male where the girl ultimately chooses her mate.  Now bring on the dystopia...

I just want to veer off topic for a moment and ask, why do dystopia's get dumped into the genre of science fiction?  This novel, for instance, is not advanced technically in any way, not even in the science of genetics (which you would assume if you were a creepy, futuristic society intent on the breeding of girls).  But this isn't the case with this book.  Nothing sciency at all.  Goodreads even gave it a romance rating which, in my opinion, is really inappropriate.

So I think that at the most, this novel is food for thought, and I like that it is different from anything I have read so far.  I will also say that it has inspired me a little to want to write in the same way (though I haven't a clue about what!).

Slowing Down is Hard To Do

Even with the best of intentions, I have read 64 books this year so far.   To be fair 45 of those books were manga (more on that later!), but still... it's a lot.  It's not easy to slow down.  I have many talks with myself about doing something else, and it's always an argument!  I think the biggest reason I haven't made any new blog entries over the past year is because I whipped through books so quickly that I didn't give myself the chance to think about what I read, let alone think about what I might want to say about it.   I wasn't going to do that again, so here I am late Sunday night, thinking about a book I read over a week ago.

No-one forgets their first dystopian... or at least it was that way for me.  Thirty-four years ago I read 1984 by George Orwell as part of high school English.  It was my second book by him (having been subjected to Animal Farm  by a really mediocre teacher which spoiled any possible appreciation I could have felt for it at the time).  I was blown away!  This book was remarkable, enraging, and  sinister.  When I was an adult, one of the first things I did was buy as many of George Orwells' books as I could get my hands on.   But still... even with the advent of the movie  in 1984, and that amazing soundtrack by The Eurythmics, it was not something very relate able, because Orwell's world Oceania seemed so removed from my own.

Not so with The Circle by Dave Eggers.  It was a gripping read, I kept hoping that the protagonist Mae Holland,  would get out somehow, but I was forgetting how that went for Winston Smith in 1984.  I shouldn't have been surprised at all, because without even knowing anything about this author, or his motives behind writing this book, I can firmly state that this is an updated version of that classic dystopia 1984.   I know it so well, but I didn't start to suspect it until Mae began public speaking, and quoting her insipid slogans that became mantras for the masses.  I admit at that point I was looking for more evidence to support my supposition, and I found a lot of it.   I'm not criticizing Eggers for doing this.  He did a splendid job of updating this essential story, hence making it eerier because it is so close to us now, technologically and socially.  

Last week, on the day when I had just read that part of the story about the wrist bands in the novel I had a student come in to see if I could charge his Fitbit... spooky!  It galvanized me in a different way, and it still upset the apple cart!  And it was a relief in other ways in that I am not a big user of social media (I rarely post), and I don't use a lot of apps.  Honestly, the most useful ones I have are all book related.  

Like other books that have inspired me to make changes, The Circle has inspired me to work on communication with people, have face to face encounters rather than leaving things to an email or a text.  As well, I am firmly entrenched in the anti-twitter camp.  I thought it was stupid when it first came out, and I think it is just plain rubbish now (especially considering a certain leader's over-usage of it).   Last year I saw a poster or two about using social media responsibly, so I think, given a chance, I will help to promote that too.

I am not a technophobe.  I love having so many resources at my fingertips, doing the job that I do, accessibility to information and it's many forms is, in my opinion, vital in the role of a librarian.  But at the end of my workday I switch everything off, and go home.  Do something different.  Meet friends for walks or coffee, go to the local library, listen to music or an audio book on my commute to and from work.  Cook food, clean the house, work on my crochet, take naps.  Read.  Live. 

Logan's Run

Hoo boy was I pleased to find that this was a novel!  I loved the movie and even, as a kid, played some sort of chasing game with the Logan's run theme (I think my character name was Cassiopea 12 or something really glamorous like Geraldine 5).  All very silly of course, and sobering as well because this is a pretty scary dystopian story.  At the time there were lots of them along that kind of theme.  I'm talking about the television show of course, since the movie would not have been suitable for television at the time.  I got to see the movie a few years ago on Turner Classic Movies, and was pretty excited about that.  But not as excited as finding the book!  I have rarely ever found a movie or television show that was actually better than it's book, and Logan's Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson did not disappoint.  I didn't want to put it down and when I had to, very quickly picked it up again as soon as I was home from work.  I have to admit that I found certain things in the movie that did not make sense, like the murder of people who were at the limit of their life span in a carrousel (like the Roman circus) for the poplace to watch as entertainment, it seemed unnecessarily cruel to me to do that, considering that everything else seemed so technologically advanced., so why the barbarism?  Well guess what?  It's not in the book!  Just good old Hollywood or whoever filmed the movie trying to "improve" on what the authors wrote.  It has mostly been my experience that these kind of changes rarely improve anything. 
So take it from me...just go and read the book! 

Fahrenheit 451

It has been a pleasure for me this week to re-visit an old favorite by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.   It was originally one of those books that scared the living daylights out of me, and firmly entrenched a dedication to the act of reading (and buying books...lots of books 'cos I want to save 'em all!).   

When I was a young girl, high on the joy of reading, I was negatively teased about it by my family.  Though I can't remember far enough back to say with absolute certainty when I first began to read, I can clearly remember the excitement of understanding letters, and being able to string them into words that meant something (the A-ha! moment).  I can also remember the hunger to read more, to read them all, and to never stop reading, ever.  It wasn't an easy thing to do.  It is a difficult concept for me to accept (and believe me today I am still mystified that there can still be such a thing), but there are households out there  in the world that do not read, and mine was one of them.  My mother wanted me to be a secretary or a nurse until I got married.  She wanted me to take Physical Education and Cooking at school, all good subjects to take to support what her expectations of me were (which was to be like herself, or what she had always wanted to be), and having my head in a book did not agree with her image of what I should be. The sad thing is, my mother never had the opportunities that I had, she didn't even finish grade school (my memory is fuzzy on just how much schooling she actually recieved), so she was never able to appreciate the joys of a good book (I don't remember her actually having a book in her hand ever). It took a long time for me to understand that and it wasn't until I was an adult and far removed from my mother that I realized  her ignorance and jealousy was what had fueled her contempt for me and my puzzling interests.  I had this fantasy when I was a teenager about the kind of home I would have when I grew up, and the most noticeable feature was the wall to wall library in every room (plus the really bitchin' stereo and music room!).

When I had my own family, I made sure from the very beginning, that books would be a part of their lives.  All of my children were read to from an early age ( I remember reading to 20-month-old DS1 while cradling 3-week-old DS2 in my lap).  Books were important... perhaps because they were such an issue when I was young.  I have always had that contrary streak that makes me want to do even more the things that other people tell me I cannot do! (Just watch me during Banned Books Week!)  So books have been a major part of my adulthood my children love to read (plus they have always had the freedom to do as they wished in their life and career choices with support from myself and my husband).
So you may understand why Fahrenheit 451 was such a devastating book to read for me as I could understand and sympathise with all of the people who were punished, arrested and forced to watch as their books were burnt in front of them.  No-one should be able to tell you what you can and cannot do, and free thinking of any sort, is a right for every person.  This is why I will always fight against censorship, why I have the best job in the world (in a library), and why I am constantly reading.  Books are life.  Freedom of thought,  full of knowledge, dreams and imagination, books are anything and everything to me.

                               "Through my love of words and my love of ideas and metaphors, I can convince you of the most unlikely things.  That's what a magician does.  He can make an elephant disappear on stage.  I can make an entire world disappear or appear in a story.  Or I can make dinosaurs fall in love with lighthouses.  It's magic!"
                                                                           Ray Bradbury

If you have never read Fahrenheit 451, I recommend that you try to get a hold of the 50th Anniversary Edition, as it has a coda  which was really quite profound and very classic Bradbury waxing poetic about something he is passionate about (censorship!).  And if that is not enough (and I don't see how it could be!) have a look at BRADBURY SPEAKS: Too Soon From The Cave, Too Far From The Stars Essays on the Past, the Future, and Everything in Between.   In that book is a very clear and poignant insight in to the genius  that was Ray Bradbury.