#12 - 1984

Keeping up the rapid pace, I breezed through 1984. I have been hearing about this one for ages. The archetypal dystopia novel, bringer of a whole pile of tropes, and a little bit of a nerd anthem. Needless to say, I have a lot of friends who have read it and propound its virtues to me endlessly. Not that I wasn't excited for it, it was just... extremely hyped. Luckily, it delivered.

Set in the future of last Thursday, Orwell's 1984 follow a guy who has arguably the coolest job in the Ministry of Truth (the propagandists, it all makes painful sense within five minutes of reading it), rewriting the papers to recreate history. I would love to have this sort of job. I mean, if we all have to be cogs in a giant evil machine with no way to fight or revolt, you might as well have a really awesome job. Now again, the Ministry of Love deals with torture, Truth with propaganda, etc. All of the instances of "doublethink" in the book are that simple, and even if you don't pick it up immediately, it is explained succinctly in order to allow the story to move forward. I was so happy with this. Orwell managed to toe the line perfectly between being enigmatic with his message and beating you over the head with it. In reading it, there was room to discover, and levels to find, but there was still a handrail if you fell away from the beaten path.

Those messages were not spectacular from today's perspective, but most of the blame for that has to do with the fact that the book has been out for, you know, a while. The vast majority of its real deep messages have already permeated our culture. Doublethink? We've seen it. Big Brother? We're about 20 seasons in. But there are some other elements of it that were so well-done as to continue to thrill even after hearing about it for decades. I was particularly intrigued by his take on the secret tryst. The budding romance had so much of a teenager's feel to it, the meeting in forests, playing house, the pure carnal nature of the physical part - it seemed so immature and yet wild. My favourite quote from it was to the vixen Julia: "You're only a rebel from the waist down". Who doesn't know at least one person from their high school life like that?

Stunningly, 1984 lived up to all of its hype. It was a good rhythm, excepting the painful "book" chapter. It had all of the angst and psychological drama and intellectualisms to keep me entertained, but didn't drown me with rhyming verse. It was direct, to the point and powerful in its simplicity. It had storylines and characters and drama and romance, all combined into a setting that makes you think and reminds you of both history and the future. Of course, those are often the same thing, if you listen to the book.

9/10

#11 - Slaughterhouse Five

This one was one that I was truly excited to read. Since the inception of the idea, this quest, I had been harangued to read the books that a Miss Amy Oldfield wanted me to read. We bartered over how much influence - every 5 books, every 10 books - and eventually settled upon every 8 books being an Oldfield Option. The first was from the original list, albeit from somewhere in the 50s. It was a book she loved by an auther she loved written in a style she loved and I was going to love it dammit. Luckily, I did.

Slaughterhouse Five, of The Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, is certainly not as complex as an Iliad or a Moby Dick. In some ways it is more complicated. The plot is disjointed, there are characters introduced just to disappear and the entire premise seems to not make sense. However, I bulldozed through it in the course of a day. The language is simple, and the font was large and spread out on the page. But even after I finished, my head was buzzing softly. Not too badly, it certainly wasn't going to explode. But there was that contented fullness in my brain, and for that I can thank Vonnegut.

Now how can I explain this plot? Billy Pilgrim is a loony who has become unstuck from time. So he jumps between his early and late life from Ilium, his time as a POW in the war...and his time with the Tralfamadorians, an alien race that lives in four dimensions. These storylines jump and blend, leaving the main character of Billy Pilgrim as one of the strangest, most complete characters I have ever seen yet. A neat bit of double narration is done, as Vonnegut throws in his own input on what Billy sees, which reminds me of Conrad's techniques in Heart of Darkness.

There were lots of funny little bits. The literary references were nice and not overdone, showing where he came from and perhaps where Billy's insane ideas stemmed from. The repetitions of "and so it goes" were sometimes funny, sometimes poignant. I was always able to follow along, I was always interested and entertained. There was never a boring section, and even if there was, they were always short enough to get me to keep reading until it jumped away again. So thank you Amy, I bow to your prowess in book determining. I eagerly await your next Oldfield Option.

8/10

#10 - The Iliad

It's the freaking Iliad. Let's get that straight right away. Homer's epic poem about the Trojan War, and the hero Achilles and the rape (read: kidnapping) of Helen, and those thousand or so ships she launched. It's that Iliad. Beyond that, it's the freaking Chapman Iliad. George Chapman spent 11 years of his life dedicated to not only translating this into modern English, but retaining the rhyme and rhythm of the original. What results is a novel that has driving language and a beating movement to go along with the classical storyline.

That classical storyline is one that, even if you aren't wholly familiar with it, some elements should be familiar. The Greeks are furious with the Trojans for the rape of Helen, and so they launch their ships and begin kicking Trojan ass. However, their side is weakened because their single most powerful warrior, Achilles of the wussy heel, is throwing a hissy fit because of something that the bossman of the Greeks Agamemnon did to him. But the battle rages on regardless, with the gods interfering as they see fit, pushing the Greeks to the brink of disaster until, with a last wipe of a tear, Achilles stands up and decides to kick ass, wiping the Trojans up and down the beach.

Now, this sums up the entire storyline. Besides one or two books (chapters) chronicling the home lives of the two sides, that's it. Battle after battle, sort of dragging like the half-hour Lord of the Rings battle scenes, it loops endlessly through the same short motifs. Minor characters are introduced and killed in the same pattern. First, they are introduced and described by their father and homeland. Then they try to smite the major hero, who laughs, brushes the blow off, then proceeds to shank them, usually with a spear just under the nipple. Sometimes they even take the time to mock them for their pathetic attempts, and explain to them why they will burn in the afterlife. Another constant loop are the sacrifices of so many cows, goats and other hooved creatures that the book is banned from all Indian schools.

Essentially, it starts to smack of filler, much in the same way as Moby Dick. The proof is in the Arguments. Each chapter is summed up in an "Argument", about 16 lines of rhyming verse. This covers the entire content of the book. Then below that, there is "Another Argument", summing up that argument in a simple couplet. So right there, the entire novel is summed up in 48 lines. And yet we keep reading. Why? It's the freaking Iliad. Renowned for millenia, the pinnacle of everything schmancy for generations. So, I'm glad I finished it.

Interestingly, my pattern in reading it is much the same way as Chapman wrote it. You see, he wrote the first 12 books over 10 years, then powered through the last 12 in 15 weeks. I read the first 12 over 4 months, then nailed the second half in a night. So, just as Chapman did, I embraced the classic literature. I absorbed the flow and rhythms of the ancients. Finally, halfway through, I got fed up and blitzed through the entire thing.

5/10