The BFG (while it’s short for "Big Friendly Giant", I couldn’t help but thinking “Big F-ing Giant” until I realized what it was) is a children's book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake, first published in 1982. The book was an expansion of a story told in Danny, the Champion of the World, an earlier Dahl book. The book went on to win a Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis prize in 1985. An animated film based on the book was released in 1989 with David Jason providing the voice of the BFG and Amanda Root as the voice of Sophie. It has not arrived at the library yet for viewing. It has also been adapted as a theater performance.

I have to say that I’m disappointed by all the children’s books that are listed on the BBC Top 100 books list. As an adult, I feel that the list should have catered more towards that viewing audience, and perhaps had a second list for children.

Even for a children’s book, the themes were actually quite deep. Two that stuck out the most were acceptance and trying new things. Social norms for our society can easily be forbidden in our societies. The discussion between the BFG and Sophie regarding farting (or whizpopping, in giant terms) is acceptable in giant lands, but not Sophie’s society.

I found it very entertaining to run across words that I thought to be a bit unique in our personal conversations, and find them in black and white in the book.

The book received a mostly favorable critical response, and several awards. 'Wildly original… and you thought fairy stories were just for kids.' Artemis Fowl tells the gripping story of a clever yet sinister young boy who has discovered a secret world of "fairies". Not fairies as you would probably think of them e.g. cute with wings and star wands - more like a race of little people with limited magical skills. He uses this information to try and blackmail the Fairy race into giving him vast amounts of gold. Unfortunately for him, the fairy he tries to capture is a member of the fairy secret police force and his troubles are just beginning. This book is very funny in places and quite gripping in others. While there is a bit more violence than you would generally find in a book of this type, I feel that it’s appropriate for the age group of the targeted audience. A film adaptation was reported to be in the writing stage in mid-2008, with Jim Sheridan directing, but no further information was given as to the sit-rep of the movie.In general, the book received a very positive critical response – in 2004 it received the Young Reader's Choice Award and Garden State Teen Book Award, among other awards. The New York Post said "Artemis Fowl is great ... a new thriller fairy tale that will grab your interest, no matter your age." and the Library Journal said "Fun to read, full of action and humour, this is recommended for all public libraries and to readers of all ages." Time.com said, "Artemis Fowl is pacy, playful, and very funny, an inventive mix of myth and modernity, magic and crime," while The New York Times Book Review said that "Colfer has done enormously, explosively well." Kate Kellaway of The Observer wasn’t as impressed and called the book "a smart, amusing one-off. It flashes with hi-tech invention – as if Colfer were as much an inspired boffin as a writer."The Amazon.com official review highly complimented the book, saying "Fantastic stuff from beginning to end, Artemis Fowl is a rip-roaring, 21st century romp of the highest order." and the book was also generally well received by the public, with an average score of 4/5 from Amazon users. So Colfer must have done something right. However, another Time Magazine review criticized the "abysmal" writing and the characterization, calling Artemis "repellent in almost every regard." It concluded that Artemis Fowl is "an awkward, calculated, humorless and mean-spirited book."

USA Today's review concluded: "All the familiar action-flick clichés are trotted out: the backstabbing, politically astute subordinate; the seemingly loony but loyal computer expert; the dabs of family loyalty; the requisite happy ending; the utterly unsubtle plugs for the sequel; the big action scenes. ... Resist the hype, parents, booksellers and librarians. This is not the new Harry Potter, nor is it a good children's book." Seriously, this is too bad, that USA Today cannot appreciate that even if children decide to read the Artemis Fowl series, at least they are indeed reading.

The BFG (while it’s short for "Big Friendly Giant", I couldn’t help but thinking “Big F-ing Giant” until I realized what it was) is a children's book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake, first published in 1982. The book was an expansion of a story told in Danny, the Champion of the World, an earlier Dahl book. The book went on to win a Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis prize in 1985.  An animated film based on the book was released in 1989 with David Jason providing the voice of the BFG and Amanda Root as the voice of Sophie.  It has not arrived at the library yet for viewing.  It has also been adapted as a theater performance.

I have to say that I’m disappointed by all the children’s books that are listed on the BBC Top 100 books list.  As an adult, I feel that the list should have catered more towards that viewing audience, and perhaps had a second list for children.

Even for a children’s book, the themes were actually quite deep.  Two that stuck out the most were acceptance and trying new things.  Social norms for our society can easily be forbidden in our societies.  The discussion between the BFG and Sophie regarding farting (or whizpopping, in giant terms) is acceptable in giant lands, but not Sophie’s society. 

I found it very entertaining to run across words that I thought to be a bit unique in our personal conversations, and find them in black and white in the book. 

On the Every Man’s Library List

The Old Curiosity Shop is a novel by Charles Dickens. The plot follows the life of Nell Trent and her grandfather, both residents of The Old Curiosity Shop in London.  At once both terrifying and fascinating, The Old Curiosity Shop is a compelling voyage into the depths of human evil and childlike innocence.  Nell and her grandfather venture throughout the English countryside in search of a safe haven – their journey modeled after that of Christian in John Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress.”  It was one of two novels (the other being Barnaby Rudge) which Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock, which lasted from 1840 to 1841. The Old Curiosity Shop was printed as a separate book in 1841.

The hype surrounding the conclusion of the series was unprecedented; Dickens fans were reported to storm the piers of New York City, shouting to arriving sailors (who might have already read the last installment in the United Kingdom), "Is Little Nell alive?" In 2007, many newspapers claimed the excitement at the release of the last volume The Old Curiosity Shop was the only historical comparison that could be made to the excitement at the release of the last Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

It’s difficult to determine precisely when the book takes place.  The events of the book seem to take place around 1825. In Chapter 29, Miss Monflathers refers to the death of Lord Byron, who died on April 19, 1824. When the inquest rules (incorrectly) that Quilp committed suicide, his corpse is ordered to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through its heart, a practice banned in 1826. And Nell's grandfather, after his breakdown, fears that he shall be sent to a madhouse, and there chained to a wall and whipped; these practices went out of use after about 1830. In Chapter 13, the lawyer Mr. Brass is described as "one of Her Majesty's attorneys", putting him in the reign of Queen Victoria, which began in 1837, but given all the other evidence, and the fact that Kit, at his trial, is charged with acting "against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King" (referring to George IV), this must be a slip of the pen.  Pinpointing the actual time is a little difficult, but able to be narrowed down to a twelve year span.

Charles Dickens always uses real locations for inspirations in his books.  A shop named 'The Old Curiosity Shop' can be found at 13–14 Portsmouth Street, Westminster, London, WC2A 2ES, in amongst the London School of Economics. The building dates back to the sixteenth century, but this name was added after the novel was released, as it was thought to be the inspiration for Dickens' description of the antique shop. At one time it functioned as a dairy on an estate given by King Charles II to one of his many mistresses. It was made using the wood from old ships and the building survived the bombs of Second World War. There is also a shop in Broadstairs called The Old Curiosity Shop, where Dickens rented a home.

Nell and her Grandfather meet Codlin and Short in a Churchyard in Aylesbury. The Races where Nell and her Grandfather go to with the show people are at Banbury. The village where they first meet the schoolmaster is Warmington, Warwickshire. They meet Mrs. Jarley near the village of Gaydon, Warwickshire. The town where they work at Jarley's Waxworks is Warwick. The heavily industrialized town where Nell spends the night by the furnace is Birmingham, after they have travelled on the Warwick and Birmingham Canal. The town in which Nell faints and is rescued by the school master is Wolverhampton in the Black Country. The village where they finally find peace and rest and where Nell dies is Tong, Shropshire.

I watched the 1979 nine-part miniseries created by the BBC on DVD. There were some secondary characters missing from the miniseries that I felt were important.  Frederick Trent, Nell’s worthless brother, and Barbara, the maidservant of Mr. and Mrs.Garland and future of wife of Kit were omitted, who I felt were important to the meat of the story.  The readers were able to understand that Nell was betrayed by her own blood for the pursuit of money, and by omitting Frederick, the viewer of the miniseries is not privileged to know this extra knife in the back that Nell was being subjected to.  The miniseries ends with the grandfather grovelling on Nell's grave, unlike the book, which gives you a follow up on all the important characters, tying up all the loose ends neatly.  The music theme accompanying the beginning and closing of every section was very depressing.

While I have been gravely disappointed in the works of Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop definitely reset the standards I had on his work.  It didn’t take long to weave a mesmerizing tale that kept me interested.  As the tale unfolded, he mixes examples of vice and virtue, goodness and wickedness throughout.  And this is where the book really excels.  Dickens’ characters are well-drawn and eminently memorable. Also interesting is the contrast Dickens develops between the freedom and beauty of the countryside and the dingy depravity of the city. He movingly depicts the sufferings of innocent people oppressed by an out-of-date legal system and a repressive governmental hierarchy.  The basic backbone of politics and corruption is a trademark of Dickens’ books.  Definitely a worthy read.

Gone with the Wind, first published in 1936 by Houghton Mifflin, is a romance novel written by Margaret Mitchell, who received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book in 1937. The story is set in Clayton County, Georgia and Atlanta during the American Civil War and Reconstruction, and, written in the bildungsroman style, it depicts the experiences of Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to come out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea. The book is the source of the 1939 film of the same name, which I also watched.

Margaret Mitchell began writing Gone with the Wind in Atlanta in 1926 to pass the time while recovering from an auto-crash injury that refused to heal. In April 1935, Harold Latham of Macmillan, an editor who was looking for new fiction, read what she had written and saw that it could be a best-seller. After Latham agreed to publish the book, Mitchell worked for another six months checking the historical references, and rewrote the opening chapter several times. Mitchell and her husband John Marsh, a copy editor by trade, edited the final version of the novel. Mitchell wrote the book's final moments first, and then wrote the events that led up to it. As to what became of her star-crossed lovers, Rhett and Scarlett, after the novel ended, Mitchell did not know, and said, "For all I know, Rhett may have found someone else who was less difficult." Gone with the Wind is the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.

The author tentatively titled the book Tomorrow is Another Day, from its last line. Other proposed titles included Bugles Sang True, Not in Our Stars, and Tote the Weary Load. The title Mitchell finally chose is from the first line of the third stanza of the poem Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae by Ernest Dowson:

"I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind..."

Scarlett O'Hara uses the title phrase when she wonders to herself if her home on a plantation called "Tara" is still standing or if it is "gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia."

“Was Tara still standing?  Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?” (Page 397, para. 5)

In a general sense, the title is a metaphor for the departure of a way of life that existed in the South prior to the Civil War. When taken in the context of Dowson's poem about "Cynara", the phrase "gone with the wind" alludes to erotic loss. The poem expresses the regrets of someone who has lost his passionate feelings for his "old passion", Cynara.  I can see this applied to the Old Guard, which includes Ashley, as they yearn for the old times and ways, and even feel like a fish out of water, as life progresses on after the Civil War, and up through Reconstruction.  

The Civil War came to an end on April 26, 1865 when Confederate General Johnston surrendered his armies in the Carolinas Campaign to Union General Sherman. The battles mentioned or depicted in Gone with the Wind are:

(1)          Battle of Fredericksburg, December 11–15, 1862, Fredericksburg, Virginia, Confederate victory.

(2)          Streight's Raid, April 19–May 3, 1863, in northern Alabama. Union Colonel Streight and his men were captured by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

(3)          Battle of Chancellorsville, April 30–May 6, 1863, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near the village of Chancellorsville, Confederate victory.

Ashley Wilkes is stationed on the Rapidan River, Virginia, in the winter of 1863, later captured and sent to a Union prison camp, Rock Island, on the Mississippi River.  I really hadn’t paid that much attention to Rock Island, Illinois.  It was fascinating to read and learn about a place that was prominent in the Civil War that wasn’t too far from my home town.

(4)          Siege of Vicksburg, May 18–July 4, 1863, Vicksburg, Mississippi, Union victory.

(5)          Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3, 1863, fought in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Union victory. "They expected death. They did not expect defeat.”

(6)          Battle of Chickamauga, September 19–20, 1863, northwestern Georgia. The first fighting in Georgia and the most significant Union defeat.

(7)          Chattanooga Campaign, November-December, 1863, Tennessee, Union victory. The city became the supply and logistics base for Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign.

Then there was the Atlanta Campaign, which took place from May–September 1864, northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta:

(1)          Confederate General Johnston fights and retreats from Dalton (May 7-13) to Resaca (May 13-15) to Kennesaw Mountain (June 27). Union General Sherman suffers heavy losses to the entrenched Confederate army. Unable to pass through Kennesaw, Sherman swings his men around to the Chattahoochee River where the Confederate army is waiting on the opposite side of the river. Once again, General Sherman flanks the Confederate army, forcing Johnston to retreat to Peachtree Creek (July 20), five miles northeast of Atlanta.

(2)          Battle of Atlanta, July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta. The city would not fall until September 2, 1864. Heavy losses for Confederate General Hood.  Interesting enough, Ft. Hood, Texas, was named after this Confederate, General John Bell Hood.

(3)          Battle of Ezra Church, July 28, 1864, Sherman's failed attack west of Atlanta where the railroad entered the city.

(4)          Battle of Utoy Creek, August 5-7, 1864, Sherman's failed attempt to break the railroad line into Atlanta from the east, heavy Union losses.

(5)          Battle of Jonesborough, August 31-September 1, 1864, Sherman successfully cut the railroad lines from the south into Atlanta. The city of Atlanta was abandoned by Hood and then occupied by Union troops for the rest of the war.

(6)          Savannah Campaign, conducted around Georgia during November and December 1864.

“If Gone with the Wind has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't.”

— Margaret Mitchell,1936

Scarlett and Rhett are survivors because they adapt to the changes brought about by the war and Reconstruction. Some of the old ways had to be cast aside to allow for this survival, and while Rhett figured out just how far and for how long to cast these traditions aside, he embraced them at precisely the right moment to keep from holding the ostracized position and contempt that Scarlett held and received for most of the book. 

“Influence is everything, Scarlett.  Remember that when you get arrested.  Influence is everything, and guilt or innocence merely an academic question.”  (Page 623, Para. 1)

As despicable as Scarlett may have been, many of the folks who survived only did so because of Scarlett’s charity.  While relatives in Charleston survived because of the said charity, they continued to criticize Scarlett’s unfashionable behavior that earned that money.  Ashley wouldn’t have survived without Scarlett’s support, either.  The focus on proper etiquette for a lady was very frustrating from my point of view, and I cannot help but wonder if I would have acted very similar in her shoes.  I wonder if this resistance that she felt in owning and operating a business pushed her over her mark in her ruthless behavior towards others. 

While survival seems to be the biggest theme, love and honor must rank up there with it.  There is no great depiction of love and honor than from Ashley and Melanie Wilkes.  Without love and honor, Ashley would have succumbed to Scarlett’s temptations when he was at his breaking point.  It was both love and honor that saw Melanie standing at Scarlett’s side, against the opinion of Atlanta.  I honestly don’t feel that Scarlett really learns to understand what love is until the very end of the novel.

Mitchell does a great job depicting the true horrors of war and the scars of which that are slow to heal, if they heal at all.  She shows in a variety of ways the effects even though the main character is slow in realizing, or acknowledging these changes and effects.  It’s hard to say how we would have reacted ourselves, were we in her shoes. 

One criticism leveled at Gone with the Wind is for its portrayal of African Americans in the 19th century South. For example, former field hands (during the early days of Reconstruction) are described behaving "as creatures of small intelligence might naturally be expected to do. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they ran wild—either from perverse pleasure in destruction or simply because of their ignorance.”  

It has also been argued that Mitchell downplayed the violent role of the Ku Klux Klan. Bestselling author Pat Conroy, in his preface to the novel, describes Mitchell's portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as having "the same romanticized role it had in The Birth of a Nation and appears to be a benign combination of the Elks Club and a men's equestrian society."   It’s fair to say that the origins of the KKK were not what is always depicted.  As Mitchell portrays them in Gone with the Wind, they were originally for the rights of the white democrats who were oppressed by the torturous and suffocating regulations of Reconstruction.  They were called upon to seek justice when no justice was exacted by the law.  It’s important to say that there were no set rules, or guidelines set up across the South by the individual Klans that rose up and stood their ground by the darkness of night.  Regarding the historical inaccuracies of the novel, historian Richard N. Current, a well-groomed expert of American history points out:

“No doubt it is indeed unfortunate that Gone with the Wind perpetuates many myths about Reconstruction, particularly with respect to blacks. Margaret Mitchell did not originate them and a young novelist can scarcely be faulted for not knowing what the majority of mature, professional historians did not know until many years later.”

Growing up, I was never very interested in the Civil War; after all, it was a war brought on by the bickering over the legitimacy and morality of slavery, right? Despite that not being accurate, it wasn’t until I took a class in “American History pre-1865” from Nashville State Community College that I learned the truth about our Civil War.  I know that sounds horrible, that I was unmotivated to pursue the truth in this matter, but I was more interested in getting the truth out about the treatment and extermination of the Native Americans, which was also an ongoing situation.  I set a heavy blame on the education system for this shortcoming of the truth in our country’s history.  I am extremely familiar with the saying “The winner writes the history books”, but I’m a person that would rather know the truth, even if it is less glamorous, even if it casts a bad light on people that I was taught to admire, and that includes Abraham Lincoln.  The causes of the war were so much more complex, and the abolishment of slavery was more of a tool and a rallying point to the ignorant.  So while my generation still typically thinks that war was about slavery, it’s only natural to witness the same concept of thought in the book, the lies Southerners were told about Yankees, that the Yankees would rape and murder women and children as they made their way through the areas.   The Yankees did burn a lot as Sherman made his way to the sea, and the destruction of the railroad system was complete.  But they did not rape, and they did not murder women and children as the rumors of the Confederacy had indicated.  And as I look how people inherently put their faith in the honesty and integrity of our current government, I can legitimately see how the Ignorance of military strategy and blind faith in their government gave the Confederacy false hopes.  It was very interesting that Dr. Meade compared the Confederate troops to the Spartans at Thermopylae.

As I prepared to read Gone with the Wind, I expected to see such words as “darkies” and the word “nigger” was seemly presented in reference to a negative situation, and most frequently said by a “darky”.  What I found very interesting, was the presentation and usage of the word “Cracker”, so much that I was prompted to do a little bit of research at the origins of the word.

“Their family had more money, more horses, more slaves than any one else in the County, but the boys had less grammar than most of their poor Cracker neighbors.” (Pg. 4, para. 3)

I find typos and grammatical errors very quickly in books.  Aside from reading dialog in dialect,  (which I find to be really irritating and frustrating), Mitchell frequently used the word “pore” in place of “poor”, and “treble” in place of “triple”.  I could find no support in the history of the English language in the United States, even the southern United States that supported this behavior. 

Although Mitchell refused to write a sequel to Gone with the Wind, Mitchell's estate authorized Alexandra Ripley to write a sequel, which was titled Scarlett. The book was subsequently adapted into a television mini-series in 1994. A second sequel was authorized by Mitchell's estate titled Rhett Butler's People, by Donald McCaig. The novel parallels Gone with the Wind from Rhett Butler's perspective.

The copyright holders of Gone with the Wind attempted to suppress publication of The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall, a novel written from the viewpoint of the slaves.  I find this truly sad, because I would have liked to have their viewpoint, as Mitchell presented a softer side on how the slaves were treated at Tara.

The 1939 movie “Gone with the Wind” was definitely a classic.  Casting was successful when they presented Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.  Those actors fit both characters to a “t”, just as I pictured them in my head as I read the book.   As successful as these characters were, though, I feel that the rough edges, coarse plot, and raw emotions were smoothed out in the movie.  Perhaps that was etiquette for the time period that the movie was produced in, but I felt it really didn’t do the book justice.  Several secondary, but important characters were omitted from the movie, as well, which I feel hurt the emotion in the movie a bit more. 

Archie, an ex-convict and former Confederate soldier who is imprisoned for the murder of his adulterous wife, was taken in by Melanie and then later became Scarlett's coach driver.  He gives her an ultimatum, stating that if she agrees to use convict work gangs at her saw mills, he would not escort her as her body guard any more.  She decides to ahead with the plan to use convicts at the saw mills, and he leaves her unprotected, opening her up for the attack, the retribution of which would lead to the death of her second husband.  Archie’s role in the cleanup of that retribution was pivotal, in my eyes.  It’s interesting that Archie was from Milledgeville, and was one of the folks who were missing the “old days”.  Milledgeville was the original capital of Georgia, and, after the legislature moved the capital to Atlanta, a symbol of the “New South” in 1868, Milledgeville symbolized the “Old South”. 

Will Benteen, a "South Georgia Cracker,", Confederate soldier and patient listener to the troubles of all, came to Tara on his journey home from the war, and after his recovery he stays on to manage the farm at Tara.  Will lost part of his leg in the war and walks with the aid of a wooden stump.  It was thought that Will was possibly an Oglethorpe’s debtor.  Fond of Carreen O'Hara, he cannot pursue that relationship as she decides to enter a convent in an attempt to deal with the loss of her beau during the war. Not wanting to leave Tara, the land he has come to love, he later marries Suellen and has at least one child with her.  Will is Scarlett’s link to Tara while she is in Atlanta, and brings her the news of the death of her father.  The movie also doesn’t show how Suellen is responsible for the death of her father, as she pushed him into nearly signing the Yankee oath, so that she could get some money in compensation.  Will’s quick thinking saves the immediate family from a blow out at the graveside when friend and neighbors wished to attack Suellen in their graveside words.

Scarlett actually had one child per marriage.  Wade Hampton Hamilton was her son with Charles.  He was born in early 1862 and was named for his father's commanding officer, Wade Hampton III.  He is a fine example of Scarlett’s lack of motherly love.  Ella Lorena Kennedy was the homely, simple daughter of Scarlett and Frank.  She is also mousy, like her brother. 

Some other references to Gone with the Wind I found were quite interesting.  The section of US 41 and US 19 from Interstate 75 south through Jonesboro to the Clayton/Henry county line is called Tara Boulevard, in honor of the book and movie, and the placement of the fictitious plantation near the town. The Tara Field airport (located in Henry but operated by Clayton) is also named for it.  Country singing legend Dolly Parton named her Nashville mansion Tara.

“He drew a short breath and said lightly but softly: ‘My dear, I don’t give a damn.’” (Page 1035, para. 13)
(One page from the end, when Rhett is telling Scarlett to basically piss off).

Bleak House, a novel by Charles Dickens, was originally published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. While not distinguished as his greatest work, it is still held to be one of Dickens's finest novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. The story is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly, but depressive John Jarndyce, and the childish and disingenuous Harold Skimpole, as well as the likeable but imprudent Richard Carstone.

At the novel's core is long-running litigation in England's Court of Chancery, Jarndyce v Jarndyce, which has far-reaching consequences for all involved. This case revolves around a testator who apparently made several wills, all of them seeking to bequeath money and land surrounding the Manor of Marr in South Yorkshire. The litigation, which already has consumed years and sixty to seventy thousand pounds sterling in court costs, is emblematic of the failure of Chancery. Dickens's assault on the flaws of the British judiciary system is based in part on his own experiences as a law clerk, and in part on his experiences as a Chancery litigant seeking to enforce his copyright on his earlier books. His harsh characterization of the slow, arcane Chancery law process gave memorable form to pre-existing widespread frustration with the system. Though Chancery lawyers and judges criticized Dickens's portrait of Chancery as exaggerated and unmerited, his novel helped to spur an ongoing movement that culminated in enactment of the legal reform in the 1870s. In fact, Dickens was writing just as Chancery was reforming itself, with the Six Clerks and Masters mentioned in Chapter One abolished in 1842 and 1852 respectively. The need for further reform was being widely debated. These facts raise an issue as to when Bleak House is actually set. Technically it must be before 1842, and at least some of his readers at the time would have been aware of this. However, there is some question as to whether this timeframe is consistent with some of the themes of the novel. The great English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth, set the action in 1827.

For most readers and scholars, the central concern of Bleak House is its riveting and insistent indictment of the English Chancery court system. Chancery or equity courts were one half of the English justice system, existing side-by-side with law courts. Unlike law courts, which heard actions for legal injuries compensable by monetary damages, Chancery courts heard actions having to do with wills and estates, or with the uses of private property. By the mid-nineteenth century, English law reformers had long criticized and mocked the delays of Chancery litigation, and Dickens found the subject a tempting target. (He already had taken a shot at law-courts and that side of the legal profession in his 1837 novel The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club or The Pickwick Papers). The fame and critical success of Bleak House have led many readers and scholars to apply its indictment of Chancery to the entire legal system, and indeed it is the greatest indictment of law, lawyers, and the legal system in the English language. Scholars such as the English legal historian Sir William Searle Holdsworth, in his 1928 series of lectures Charles Dickens as a Legal Historian published by Yale University Press, have made a plausible case for treating Dickens's novels, and Bleak House in particular, as primary sources illuminating the history of English law.

Dickens claimed in the preface to the volume edition of Bleak House (it was initially released in parts) that he had "purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar things". And some remarkable things do happen: One character, Krook, smells of brimstone and eventually dies of spontaneous human combustion, attributed to his evil nature. Using spontaneous human combustion to dispose of Krook in the story was controversial. The nineteenth century saw the increasing triumph of the scientific world-view and of technology rooted in scientific advances. Scientific and technological research and discovery were regarded as among the highest forms of human endeavor. Scientifically inclined writers, as well as medical doctors and scientists, rejected spontaneous human combustion as legend or superstition. When the installments of Bleak House containing Krook's demise appeared, the literary critic George Henry Lewes criticized Dickens, accusing him of "giving currency to a vulgar error". Dickens vigorously defended the reality of spontaneous human combustion and cited many documented cases, such as those of Mme. Millet of Rheims and of the Countess di Bandi, as well as his own memories of coroners' inquests that he had attended when he had been a reporter. In the preface of the book edition of Bleak House, Dickens wrote:

"I shall not abandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable Spontaneous Combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences are usually received."

George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton are among those literary critics and writers who consider Bleak House to be the best novel that Charles Dickens wrote. As Chesterton put it: "Bleak House is not certainly Dickens's best book; but perhaps it is his best novel". Harold Bloom in his book The Western Canon, also considers Bleak House to be Dickens's greatest novel. Daniel Burt, in his book The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time, ranks Bleak House number 12.

While I am not particularly a fan of the his writing style, I do admire that Dickens used his books to shed light upon and push his political agendas, but while doing so, he did not allow his political agendas to be too overpowering for the story itself.  Upon reaching page 375, nearly halfway through the book, the plot finally exposed itself, and I was no longer tending to the thoughts of “what is the purpose of this book?” I found the first half of the book to be drab, as if I was telling you the entire life history of everyone that I interacted with last week, despite whether or not it affected the main events of last week.  While I do not enjoy reading dialog in dialect, I found it more distracting to not understand the “point” of the piece.  I ended up watching it on disc, to assist me in understanding what was going on, and the point of the novel.   It was the second production of Bleak House, and aired in 1985 as an eight-part series.  It starred Diana Rigg and Denholm Elliot.   While the movie completely eliminated characters such as Caroline “Caddy” Jellyby, an important secondary character, I felt that the production put the chapters of the story in a more logical order than Dickens wrote it. 

Bleak House has been cited as "the first novel in which a detective plays a significant role" by Mill Roseman in the 1971 “Detectionary”.  It’s thought that Dickens patterned the character “Mr. Bucket” after Inspector Charles Frederick Field of the then recently formed Detective Department of Scotland Yard.

“But Owen Meany’s manner of making and keeping a thing mysterious was to allude to something too dark and terrible to mention.  He was changing churches, he said, TO ESCAPE THE CATHOLICS—or, actually, it was his father who was escaping and defying the Catholics by sending Owen to Sunday school, to be confirmed, in the Episcopal Church.  When Congregationalists turned into Episcopalians, Owen told me, there was nothing to it; it simply represented a move upward in church formality—in HOCUS POCUS, Owen called it.  But for Catholics to move to the Episcopal Church was not only a move away from the hocus-pocus; it was a move that risked eternal damnation.” (Pg. 30, para. 5)

“Not only did Catholics kneel and mutter litanies and creeds without ceasing, but they ritualized any hope of contact with God to such an extent that Owen felt they’d interfered with his ability to pray—to talk to God DIRECTLY, as Owen put it.” (Pg. 31, para. 1)

“The Soviets said they wouldn’t test any weapons until the U.S. tested first,” I told the canon.  “Don’t you see how deliberately provactive this is?  How arrogant!  How unconcerned with any arms agreement—of anykind!  Every American should be forced to live outside the United States for a year or two.  Americans should be forced to see how ridiculous they appear to the rest of the world!  They should listen to someone else’s version of themselves—to anyone else’s version!  Every country knows more about America than Americans know about themselves!  And Americans now absolutely nothing about any other country!” (Pg. 203, para. 7) (regarding the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the US and USSR).

An interesting notation:  page 233, third page of Chapter 6 “The Voice” had a font change.  From Times New Roman to something along the lines of Lucida.  But on the next page, 234, it returned to the original font.

“Oh, boy.  Mrs. Reagan said that the congressional hearings on the Iran-contra deals had not affected the president.  Mrs. Reagan was in Sweden to observe a drug-abuse program in a high school in a Stockholm suburb;  I guess she’s one of those many American adults of a certain advanced age who believe that the root of all evil lies in the area of young people’s self-abuse.  Someone should tell Mrs. Reagan that young people—not even young people on drugs—are not the ones responsible for the major problems besetting the world!”  (Pg., para. 8)

“It makes me sick to hear the lectures delivered to Lt. Col. Oliver North.  What are they lecturing him for?  The colonel wants to support the contras—“for the love of God and for the love of country”; he’s already testified that he’d do anything his commander-in-chief- wanted him to do.  And now we get to listen to the senators and the representatives who are running for office again; they tell the colonel all he doesn’t know about the U.S. Constitution; they point out to him that patriotism is not necessarily defined as blind devotion to a president’s particular agenda—and that to dispute a presidential policy is not necessarily anti-American.  They might add that God is not a proven right-winger!  Why are they pontificating the obvious to Colonel North?  Why don’t they have the balls to say this to their blessed commander-in-chief?”  (Pg. 339, para. 8)

(Regarding the death of Marilyn Monroe) “It has to do with all of us,” said Owen Meany, when I called him that night.  “She was just like our whole country—not quite young anymore, but not old either; a little breathless, very beautiful, maybe a little stupid, maybe a lot smarter than she seemed.  And she was looking for something—I think she wanted to be good.  Look at the men in her life—Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, maybe the Kennedys.  Look at how good they seemed!  Look at how desirable she was!  That’s what she was:  She was desirable.  She was finny and sexy—and she was vulnerable, too.  She was never quite happy, she was always a little overweight.  She was just like our country,” he repeated… “And those men,” he said.  “Those famous, powerful men—did they really love her?  Did they take care of her?  If she was ever with the Kennedys, they couldn’t have loved her—they were just using her, they were just being careless and treating themselves to a thrill.  That’s what powerful men do to this country—it’s a beautiful, sexy, breathless country, and powerful men use it to treat themselves to a thrill!  They say they love it but they don’t mean it.  They say things to make themselves appear good—they make themselves appear moral.  That’s what I thought Kennedy was: a moralist.  But he was just giving us a snow job.  He was just being a good seducer.  I thought he was a savior.  I thought he wanted to use his power to do good.  But people will say and do anything just to get the power; then they’ll use the power just to get a thrill.  Marilyn Monroe was always looking for the best man—maybe she wanted the man with the most ability to do good.  And she was seduced, over and over again—she got fooled, she was tricked, she got used, she was used up.  Just like the country.  The country wants a savior.  The country is a sucker for powerful men who look good.  We thing they’re moralists and then they just use us.  That’s what’s going to happen to you and me,” said Owen Meany.  “We’re going to be used.” (Pgs. 381-382, para. 7)

“…Oh just drop dead! He thought.
“At that precise moment, that is what he’d prayed.  Then Owen Meany hit the next pitch.  This is what a self-centered religion does to us:  it allows us to use it to further our own ends.  How could the Rev. Lewis Merrill agree with me—that Mr. and Mrs. Meany were “monsters of superstition”—if he himself believed that God had listened to his prayer at that Little League game;  and that God had not “listened” to him since?  Because he’s wished my mother dead, my father said, God had punished him; God had taught Pastor Merrill not to trifle with prayer.  And I suppose that was why it had been so difficult for Mr. Merrill to pray for Owen Meany—and why he had invited us all to offer up our silent prayers for Owen, instead of speaking out himself.  And he called Mr. and Mrs. Meany “superstitious”!  Look at the world:  look at how many of our peerless leaders presume to tell us that they know what God wants!  It’s not God who’s fucked up, it’s the screamers who say they believe in Him and who claim to pursue their dark ends in His holy name!”  (Pg. 481, para. 2)

A Prayer for Owen Meany was the seventh published novel by American writer John Irving.  Published in 1989, it tells the story of John Wheelwright and his best friend Owen Meany growing up together in a small New England town during the 1950-60s. Owen is a remarkable boy in many ways; he believes himself to be God's instrument, doesn’t believe in accidents, and journeys on a truly extraordinary path.  It is regarded as a symbolic and often comic study of religious doubt and faith.

Writing from his home in Toronto, Canada in 1987, John Wheelwright narrates the story of his childhood. Owen Meany also featured Irving's dark reflections on American history from the 1960s to the late 1980s.  I confess that this is a time period that I am politically ignorant, or do not know as much as I should know.  Peppering his narrative with frequent diary entries in which he chronicles his outrage against the behavior of the Ronald Reagan administration in the late 1980s, Wheelright tells the story of his early life in Gravesend, New Hampshire, when his best friend was Owen Meany, who he remembers as the boy who accidentally killed Wheelwright's mother and made Wheelright believe in God. The narrative of A Prayer for Owen Meany does not follow a perfect chronology, as John pieces together the story he wants to tell.

Though most of its events are fictional, the broad contour of Owen Meany's storyline conforms to the contour of Irving's life; it is probably his most autobiographical novel. The town in which the novel is set--Gravesend, New Hampshire--is modeled explicitly on Irving's childhood town of Exeter, and Gravesend Academy is simply a literary version of Phillips Exeter Academy. Like Irving, John Wheelwright grows up on Front Street, is the stepson of an academy history teacher, and does not know who his real father is. Like Irving, Wheelright is dyslexic, and attends the academy and the University of New Hampshire; like Irving, Wheelright becomes a teacher, and teaches at an all-girls school (Irving taught at Mount Holyoke College). At the time of the novel's narration, John lives in Toronto, where Irving now spends part of each year. Still, Owen Meany is hardly autobiography; though it features Irving's reflections on small-town life and on the events of American history during his lifetime, its central character, the miraculous Owen Meany, is entirely a product of Irving's imagination.

Irving became a teacher himself, working at Mount Holyoke College, but he continued to write, and began to publish novels in the late 1960s. Irving has always aspired to be a storyteller in the Dickensian sense, and his novels--frequently long, sprawling narratives featuring fantastical plots and memorable characters--are written for the intelligent general reader.  I find that I am encouraged to take my time with his works.

The novel is also homage to The Tin Drum, one of the most famous works of the acclaimed German novelist Günther Grass. Grass was a great influence for John Irving, as well as a close friend.  After briefly attending the University of Pittsburgh, he studied at the Institute for European Studies in Vienna under the tutelage of Grass. He eventually returned to the US and graduated from the University of New Hampshire, following which Irving studied at the highly prestigious Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he was mentored by Kurt Vonnegut.  It’s interesting to note that the main characters of both novels, Owen Meany and Oskar Matzerath, share the same initials as well as some other characteristics, and the stories show some parallels too. Irving confirmed this explicitly in interviews and articles.  "A Prayer for Owen Meany", however, is a completely independent story and in no sense a copy of The Tin Drum.

Irving's work lies somewhere between literary and popular fiction; in that sense, he has not been widely accepted as an artistically important American writer, but his work is critically acclaimed and beloved by millions of people. His fourth novel, 1978's The World According to Garp, became a popular sensation--as well as a movie starring Robin Williams--and since then his novels have consistently become bestsellers. In addition to Garp, Irving has written Setting Free the Bears (1968), The Water-Method Man (1972), The 158-Pound Marriage (1974), The Hotel New Hampshire (1981), The Cider House Rules, A Son of the Circus (1994), A Widow for One Year (1998), and the work widely considered to be his finest, 1989's A Prayer for Owen Meany. In addition to his career as a novelist, Irving has also written screenplay adaptations of several of his works. In 1999, he won an Academy Award for The Cider House Rules, which was made into a film starring Michael Caine. Irving's newest work, a novel entitled The Fourth Hand, was published in the summer of 2001, A Widow for One Year was published in 2004, and Until I Find You was released in 2005.

I ran across two interesting side notes about Irving as I was researching him.  He was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as an “Outstanding American” in 1993, for his great passion for and accomplishments in wrestling.  The second mention was of a more unusual sort.  According to “Chat with Phil Jackson” on ESPN LA, the Los Angeles Lakers coach has passed out this book to his team in the past as part of his ritual of assigning readings to players.

“All of Greece is bursting with pride and gratitude for our men who are greater than Achilles and Agamemnon put together.” (Pg. 106, para. 1)

Captain Corelli's Mandolin, released simultaneously as Corelli's Mandolin in the United States, is a 1994 Louis de Bernières’ novel, imbued with a mythical weight and a delightful tragicomic lightness that bursts with tenderness and wit.  It takes place on the island of Cephallonia (Kefalonia) during the Italian and German occupation of World War II. The main characters are Antonio Corelli, an Italian captain, and Pelagia, the daughter of the local physician, Dr. Iannis. An important event in the novel is the massacre of Italian troops by the Germans in September 1943 -- the Italian Acqui Division had refused to surrender and fought the Germans for nine days before running out of ammunition. Some 1,500 Italian soldiers died in the fighting, 5,000 were massacred after surrendering and the rest shipped to Germany -- although 3,000 drowned when the ship carrying them hit a mine or were bombed by the British.

“New empires were now lapping against the shores of the old.  In a short time it would no longer be a question of the conflagration of a valley and the death by fire of lizards, hedgehogs, and locusts; it would be a question of the incineration of Jews and homosexuals, gypsies and the mentally afflicted.  It would be a case of Guernica and Abyssinia writ large across the skies of Europe and North Africa, Singapore and Korea.  The self-anointed superior races, drunk on Darwin and nationalist hyperbole, besotted with eugenics and beguiled by myth, were winding up machines of genocide that soon would be unleashed upon a world already weary to the heart of such infinite foolery and contemptible vainglory.”  (Pg. 17, para. 1)

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin has a complicated, episodic structure that leaps from quiet island life to the rantings of Mussolini, Saint’s Day celebrations, soul-destroying war in Albania, politicians’ musings in Athens, treatises on Greek history and the hallucinations of a sick soldier. It is told sometimes in the first person, sometimes in the third, and the style varies between stream of consciousness, social comedy, epistle, wretched confessional, and coldly factual historical account. The variety of style and subject encompassed make it hard to summarize it, not that I would, as I feel it would allow you to expect the twists and turns.  But I will tell you that the story takes us to a tightly-knit community, with the attendant cast of quirky characters, refusing to be dominated by its "conquerors." This is the story of love found, betrayed, lost, and at long last found again.

Corelli's Mandolin is not in the least a simple love story. It is a portrait of a fiercely proud and independent little community rebelling in what small ways it can. It is a snapshot of the horrors endured by the men in combat during the Second World War. It is a damning commentary on the grandiose lack of sense among the leaders who would mold the world to fit their petty desires. It is a witty, charming, intelligent tale that possesses the reader to finish without stopping. It is a tragic story of star-crossed lovers given one more chance at happiness after a lifetime of loss, and it is worth every moment you spend turning its pages.

“How the mighty have fallen!  He was a meteor who had turned out to be an incandescent fart.  All our commanders were incandescent farts… “ (Pg. 104, para. 1)

While most WWII stories seem to portray the Germans or the Italians as a whole, this novel meshed people of different personalities, different religions, different political viewpoints, different nationalities, and different ethnicities into one intricate story, showing how they interacted and were intertwined forever.  Marxists lived peacefully with Royalists and Communists.  The Italian Occupiers lived smartly with the Greek Occupied.  The religious lived tolerably with the not-so-religious.

“Empedocles said that God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.  If that is true, then I don’t need to go to church.  And I don’t need to believe the same things as you to see that you have a purpose.” (Pg. 53, para 3)

It also made perfectly clear that the effects of war were far reaching, beyond merely the physical.  It didn’t matter what side you are on, or what role you played.

“We found that there is also a wild excitement when the tension of waiting is done with, and that sometimes this transforms itself into a kind of demented sadism once an action is commenced.  You cannot always blame soldiers for their atrocities, because I can tell you from experience that they are the natural consequences of the inferno of relief that comes from not having to think any more.  Atrocities are sometimes nothing less than the vengeance of the tormented.  Catharsis is the world I was looking for.  A Greek word.” (Pg. 61, para. 2)

I have read many accounts of the Second World War, been to concentration camps, and watched WWII movies, and I don’t believe that I’ve seen one mention of Greece in any of them.  It is easy for one to forget that there were more battlegrounds than just Germany, Austria, Italy, or Poland in this war.  How the occupied populations dealt with the brutality of the Nazis is no different, though, nor was the general opinion of the people about the Nazis.  The admirable human quality of perseverance was a streak of iron throughout the Cephallonian population.  Like a plant regrowing after a case of bad pruning, the effects of war can be seen in the masses, as they are memories that will never be forgotten.

“The islanders remember that the Germans were not human beings.  They were automata without principles, machines finely tuned in the art of pillage and brutality, without any passion except the love of strength, and without belief except in their natural right to grind an inferior race beneath the heel.” (Pg. 358, para. 2)

“She thought about war, and felt her heart grow heavy, reflecting that in the old days men were the playthings of the gods, and had advanced no further than to become the toys of other men who thought that they themselves were gods.” (Pg. 88, para 2)

In the end, everyone lost.  The Greeks were betrayed by the British.  The Nazis were betrayed by the Italians.  The Italian Army was betrayed by their leaders.  As it is with even our Army today, those in control cannot (or will not) see what is going on in the field, and haven’t a clue to the reality that the Soldiers must face, and nor do they care.   Decisions are made based on politics and self-interest, not for the welfare of the Soldiers or the people, or even our country.   

This novel was written upon a backbone of truth.  And it is fascinating to imagine who might be the inspiration for the characters within the novel.  Any time anyone writes about historical times, there is bound to be similarities in the characters of both history and the novel.  While de Bernières has denied that the character of Corelli is based on Amos Pampaloni who was then an Italian artillery captain in Cephellonia, it is acknowledged that there are many similarities in their stories. Pampaloni survived execution, joined ELAS, the Partisans in the Greek civil war, and fought with them in Epirus for 14 months. Pampaloni was interviewed by The Guardian newspaper in 2000 and expressed the view that the novel was unduly critical of the Greek left.

The novel also shows some similarities to Bandiera bianca a Cefalonia, a novel by Marcello Venturi published in 1963, translated in English as The White Flag (1969).  I wonder, though, can there really be no similarities if writing about a single delicate event as on an island?

I have ordered the movie from the library for one of our movie nights.  I see that it has Nicholas Cage in it (smiles).

“All of Greece is bursting with pride and gratitude for our men who are greater than Achilles and Agamemnon put together.” (Pg. 106, para. 1)