The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

I recently read an article about Herman Wouk.  He's 100 years old and still going strong.  He's led a great writing life which all of us wanna be authors long to have.  I knew his name but had never read any of his work so I was ecstatic when my trusty book club decided to read it.  It was the Pulitzer Prize winner in 1951 so I'm always happy when I can cross one of those off my list.

Willie Keith is a Princeton boy, fresh out of college and off to Naval Officer Training school to serve his country during World War II.  While there he earns the distinction of having more demerits than anyone else, and barely shy of requiring expulsion.  Willie has a talent for making up silly songs which he sings in a nightclub just for fun.  While there he meets a beautiful lounge singer, May Wynn.  The pair fall in love but struggle to reconcile the very different cultures in which they've been raised.

Willie is shipped off to an ancient rust bucket, a minesweeper, The Caine.  His life on board under the direction of an eccentric and overwhelmed, Captain Queeg, turn the pampered mama's boy into a man.  As a writer, I pay attention to how characters change and grow in the midst of the story.

Herman Wouk doesn't write fancy prose or use complicated literary devices.  He's simply an excellent storyteller.  The Caine Mutiny is a compelling story, well told.  I felt it dragged on especially during the court martial and I didn't quite understand the the storyline of the naval lawyer, but neither detracted from my overall enjoyment of the novel.

I have to add that the history lesson that lives within these pages is a good one.  The Caine Mutiny is one that will stick with me for a long time.  Sometimes there is nothing like a good, old fashioned classic to stimulated my gray matter and enrich my reading list.  

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

I'm always attracted to books that have won the Pulitzer Prize, and when I saw Jane Smiley on the cover of my Writer's Digest magazine, I figured I should give her writing a try.  Farmers in Iowa are not really my thing, but I like to keep an open mind when it comes to the books I read.

Larry Cook is a successful farmer who over time and the misfortune of others has accumulated a thousand acres of farmland.  He's very proud of that fact, and thrives in the attention it gives to him.  His three daughters however, have a very different view of their father.  When he decides to turn the farm over to them and their husbands, the cracks in the facade begin to grow.

I loved the first few chapters, filled with beautiful prose and lovely descriptions.  I could see in my mind the rows upon rows of corn growing in the Midwestern summer heat.  As the pages turned however, I became more and more confused.  There was so much backstory that popped in, smack dab in the middle of a scene, drawing me away it.  Then again without notice, I got yanked back into the present.  Ginny, who is the narrator of the story,  seemed at first to me like a woman I could relate to.  I understand she found herself in an unexpected and stressful situation, but many of her actions were out of character.

I've read the reviews and people love this novel.  This is simply my opinion, but I wanted something more from A Thousand Acres.  The story had all the components of a rich and wonderful story. For me, they weren't strung together in an smooth or enjoyable way. By the end I couldn't feel sorry of any of the farmers from Iowa.

Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Every high school student in America has probably seen this play or acted in it, since it's a staple in every drama program.  Unfortunately, its message is probably lost on a sixteen year old, I know it was lost on me.  But something about it has stuck in my head all these years.  A book I'm currently reading made reference to Our Town and at the same time it had popped up as part of a storyline in my own writing.  I thought I'd better revisit this Pulitzer Prize winner.

Our Town is a play in three acts and tells the story of two families, the Gibbs and the Webbs in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. We watch George, the doctor's son and Emily, the daughter of the newspaper editor, grow up, fall in love and face the end of life while the townspeople go about their business every day.

Life hasn't changed much over the years.  We get out of bed, go to work, hustle the kids out the door to school.  The children grow up, get married, and build a life starting a new family.  And for all of us it ends the same way, in death, leaving the living behind. We may want to think that our fancy cars, computers and smart phones have changed our lives but if we take the time to look deep into the our core, they have not.  Life remains the same with or without modern conveniences.

One of the many lessons of Our Town is that life is precious.  We should try to make each and every day the best day of our lives.  Maybe we can only learn that through the wisdom that comes with age. Our Town's story may be lost on the young, but I never forgot it. And I bet you haven't either.  It's well worth reading again as an adult.  Thornton Wilder's play is classic and timeless and even more meaningful when wisdom is on your side. 

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

The other day a friend posted something on Facebook that caught my eye.  It was a picture of a girl on the beach reading a book.  The caption read, "The moment when you're reading a book and the whole world around you does not exist anymore."

As an avid reader, being lost in a novel is a rare and magical moment.  You know you have uncovered something wonderful.  When I began All The Light We Cannot See, the world around me ceased to exist when I read page one.  I was in heaven! I couldn't put this book down.

Marie-Laure is a blind girl living in Paris as Hitler is rising to power in Germany.  Her father is the lock master at the museum, the keeper of all its keys.  Papa builds Marie-Laure models of the city so she can learn to navigate the streets on her own.  She counts steps and storm drains under his loving guidance.

 Werner is an orphan in Germany with a talent for fixing radios.  He's sent to a special school to learn engineering since his skills are in demand by the Nazis.  His loyalty is a way to survive and he learns to hide his compassionate heart from view. 

All The Light We Cannot See is the story of two young lives coping with the horrors of war from different viewpoints.  One has the ability to see, the other can only feel. This book is filled with love and terror, mystery and myth, kindness and hatred, all told so vividly I bubbled over with every emotion. 

Ah! My disappointing streak is finally over.  No wonder this novel won the Pulitzer Prize.  I adored every single page.

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao a few years ago.  It had won the Pulitzer Prize after all and I loved its fresh, edgy voice.  I like to mix my reading list up so I felt it was time to read another Junot Diaz novel, spice things up a bit.

The first page of This is How You Lose Her sucked me right in.  Diaz's writing is fast, snappy, sexy and neurotic.  Yunior is a young, Dominican trying to find his way even though the whole world seems to be against him.  He constantly chases the girls searching for something lasting and is never able to find it.  He's a smart kid with a good brain but thinking with the wrong brain overrules everything else in his life. Circling in the background is his over protective mother and a dying brother. 

Yunior's fast and furious antics kept me on the edge of my seat. For awhile.  After the read 'o meter on my Kindle passed 50%, I prayed for Yunior to find a girl so the story could be over with.  Too much of the same thing over and over began to bore me.  The heart racing pace of the writing got to be too much for me to take.  I wanted a break.

At the end of the story, I breathed a sigh of relief. Yunior's tales had come to an end and I could move on to something more calming and relaxing.  Since I do most of my reading in bed, I also needed a good night's sleep.  Spicing things up is not always exciting as it may seem.

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Curiously I read other reviews of The Lowland after I finished reading the book. I found a mixed bag of likes and dislikes, which I have to admit surprised me.  I was not familiar with this author or her other award winning works, the Pulitzer prize in fact, but the storyline of inseparable brothers raised in Calcutta, India, who take opposite paths in their lives, captured my attention.

At first I was unsure if I could stick with The Lowland.  It was a story like many I've read before about life in India, a culture that permeates every movement in life.  When one of the brothers, Udayan, secretly becomes immersed in a political movement, I became slightly turned off by the subject matter but not the writing.  So I kept reading.

The brothers are raised in a middle class neighborhood on a narrow street with a mosque on the corner.  They are a Hindu family.  The house their parents have built, backs up to the lowlands, an area that floods and dries with the seasons. Subhash heads to America to study away from the turmoil of his home.  Udayan stays to fight for his cause and defies his parents by bringing home a wife they do not approve of. The wife, who no one is able to love except Udayan, becomes the center the family's sorrow.

The Lowland is a story of choices defined by the friction created by opposing, deep rooted cultures.  The ebb and flow of their lives mirrors the lowland that is the family's foundation. The author's prose is steady, calm and captivating.  The Lowland is a book I couldn't put down, stayed up late and woke up early because I had to know where each course of action would lead.  Books with that kind of power don't come along very often.

I classify this novel as one that beautifully illustrates the human condition.  The human condition shapes who we are as an individual, a family, a society and I am fascinated by it.  The Lowland is worth every minute of time spent immersed in the lives of the people living with the rhythm of the lowland.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler is a Pulitzer Prize winning author after all.  I love reading Pulitzer Prize winners.  I find them interesting, fascinating, deep and exciting.  Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant was not a winner of the prestigious award but a finalist.  I am still in awe of anyone that can achieve that with their writing.  As a writer I strive for the same.

I had read that this novel would be a great study in character development.  The author herself calls this her favorite novel.  I started reading with great anticipation.  After only a few chapters I started to wonder what I'd gotten myself into.

It's not that the writing isn't superb.  It is.  Pearl Tull has depth and detail as a troubled woman, wife and mother.  Her husband simply walks out the door one day and she tells the children he's away on a business trip.  Cody, the eldest child takes out his frustrations on Ezra, the middle and most loved child.  With her mother as her only role model, Jenny, the only girl, focuses strictly on not following in her mother's footsteps.

My issue with this story is that there is nothing about any of these characters that is likeable.  Nothing.  They are angry, mean, and spiteful toward each other.  I didn't see any of them grow and change over the course of the story in any way.  Cody remained jealous throughout.  Ezra always believed in the family as a unit even though they were never able to finish an entire meal together at his restaurant.  Jenny went through the motions, going through several marriages and never really appearing as having found any happiness.  And Pearl.  Pearl softened some as she aged. But even in death she never released her hold on lives of her children. The appearance of her husband, Beck, at her funeral did little to resolve years of pain.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is wonderfully crafted and written.  The story and it's characters have great depth, and display a colorful palette of emotions.  As reader I just couldn't like them.  Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant didn't turn out to be an enjoyable experience for me.  It may be for you.  

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Did you know that there was no Pulitzer Prize for fiction awarded in 2012?  The panel couldn't decide.  I like to read Pulitzer prize winning books. They are usually very good reads in my opinion.  This year the finalists were a novella titled Train Dreams, The Pale King and Swamplandia! I've haven't read Train Dreams but will probably look it up.  The Pale King was hysterical but really rough since it was a manuscript found after the death of the author.  And then Swamplandia!  Don't forget the !.

Swamplandia! has all the ingredients of a story I love.  It's set in Florida in a swamp complete with alligators wrestlers, theme parks and wacky tourists.  The Bigtrees who own and run Swamplandia! are crazy and quirky.  They live on an island only accessible by the daily ferry that brings the swarms of people anxious to see real live alligators or Seths as the family calls them, and buy every tacky souvenir imaginable.  Ava, Osceola and Kiwi live a charmed life at the hands of the family business.  Until their mother, Hilola dies from cancer before she has taught them the tricks of her trade.

 When the tourists stop coming after a new park opens called the World of Darkness, the family starts to fall apart.  Grandpa Sawtooth is sent to a retirement home which is a houseboat.  Osceola elopes with a ghost named Louis Thanksgiving, Kiwi runs off in the middle of the night, landing a job at the World of Darkness and Ava is left at home all alone.  A stranger, the Bird Man shows up and agrees to accompany Ava on her search for Osceola and her husband, the ghost.

Karen Russell is a talented author.  I also loved  her short story collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.  It too is set in my home, Florida. It's not to say that I thought Swamplandia! was perfect.   Osceola and the ghost dragged on too long and Ava's trek through the swamp bored me at times.  But their dramatic rescue drew me right back to where I wanted them to be.  In Florida, at home, and together.

Tinkers by Paul Harding

Tinkers by Paul Harding

George is dying and Tinkers takes us through his few remaining hours.  He lays in a hospital bed in the middle of his living room being watched over by people he no longer knows.  His life randomly flashes through his mind as brief vignettes each giving the reader a special view into his heart.

The writing is superb, no wonder Tinkers won the Pulitzer Prize.  With pain numbing drugs swirling through his body, we experience his dying days for ourselves.  George's home is crashing down around him.  Lumber and plaster crashing from the ceiling landing inches from his bed.  All the while his beloved clocks tick, tick, tick soothing him back to sleep.  He loved tinkering with clocks.  Clocks filled his workroom in the basement.  People sought him out from miles away to fix their beloved clocks.

Entwined with George is the story of his father who deserted the family after biting George during an epileptic seizure.   His father too had the meticulous habits of a tinkerer.  Through the mind of a dying man, we can learn the purpose of our lives.

Tinkers is wonderful.  No wonder it captured the Pulitzer Prize. 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Oscar Wao was a book that went missing from my collection after we moved two years ago.  About six months ago the book was found, miraculously in a box in the corner of a closet. I didn't realize until I pulled it off the shelf that it had won the Pulitzer Prize.  I imagined that the story was worth waiting for.

I was prepared for all the Spanish.  My sister had warned me after she'd heard Junot Diaz speak in Cleveland.  I've taken some Spanish classes over the years when I lived in South Florida where English often takes a back seat.  I can't speak Spanish but I can figure out most of it on the written page. Or so I thought.

After reading the first ten pages I was ready to quit.  The story is loaded with Spanish slang.  I had difficulty following.  And the footnotes!  Sometimes half the page was a footnote written in tiny print.  I didn't know if I should read it or not.  Mostly I didn't.  I kept going though since I'm always afraid I'm going to miss some brilliance that will make me a better writer.   In this case I'm ecstatic that tenacious streak inside kept me reading.

Oscar Wao is a nerdy, bookworm, sci-fi crazed, fat Dominican who is desperate to get laid.  He's being raised alongside his sister by a wild and crazy single mother.  The family is followed by the curse, the fuku and have been for generations.  There were so many good things about Oscar and his family, I found it impossible not to fall in love with all of them.  Pain and misery followed them everywhere, yet they never gave in to the fuku.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is one wild ride that is well worth the trip.  No wonder it won the Pulitzer Prize.  The book is all I  imagined and well worth the wait. It's brilliant.