Sweet Jane

     Jane Eyre was one of the books I read from the summer list. I choose it for two main reasons, one perhaps more justifiable than the other. First, the song "Don't Tell Me To Do The Math(s)" by Los Campesinos quite explicitly states, "If only you would give your life to literature just / Don't read Jane Eyre! / Work on your algebra," which piqued my interest in what could possibly warrant such a vehement command. Second, I was reading Pride and Prejudice on a whim and got to the 100th page before deciding I needed to find a new book at all costs, and from its first page Janes Eyre Bronte seemed the anti-Austen. To tell the story of the struggles through the world of an orphan child, not the quest for marriage of one of however many priveleged girls.
     Jane Eyre's storytelling also turned out to be largely good, nontrivially discussing the issues of the poor and the downtrodden, although its later tendings towards being over romanticised claptrap are less than stellar. From the beginning, the way in which Jane is rebuffed from the perfectly innocent question of what she had done wrong, "Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner," establishes in so few words the character of the harsh Mrs. Reed. Jane's views towards the poor are also very well established at this very beginning of the novel, this excerpt especially shows off Bronte's talents, "I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated [...]: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste." Later, this makes Jane's descent into poverty all the more vivid as she begs for food and lodging despite being educated. However, it is also later that Jane Eyre becomes an unabashedly romantic novel, with such saccharine speeches that quite honestly boggle the mind. One especially stands out, where Jane's lover, Mr. Rochester is leaving her, "'Good-night, my--' He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me." This passage uses one the most cliche phrases ever, biting one's lip. While it may not have been as outrageously overused at the time Jane Eyre was written, it is still to modern tastes outdated at best.
     Overall, however, the romantic ramblings of Jane Eyre don't outweigh its very thought-provoking analysis of poverty in the 19th century. While it is unfortunate to have to excuse the tendencies of a book based on other strengths, in this case the overall storytelling and plot are simply greater than the minor sappy Romanticism. All in all, this book was quite worth reading despite the warnings of Los Campesinos and was far superior to the always on cliched romance of the horrible Pride and Prejudice

Second and Eight

1. Anna Karenina. It was the first of the insane Russian novels I read, and it's sheer scope and brilliance make it memorable to this day.
2. Under a Glass Bell. My friend gave me this book to read and I devoured it in less than three hours. Each short story is excellently crafted and planned.
3. Cryptonomicon. This book is a classic to me just because of its subject matter, cryptography. Add in to that three interlocking plot lines and you have a winner.
4. The Printer's Devil. It was not memorable in a good way. However, it taught me the important lesson that some writers are absolutely terrible and should be avoided at all costs.
5. Mason & Dixon. This book introduced me to Thomas Pynchon and the wonders of the dense postmodern novel. The scarring associated with this being my ID paper book also helps quite a bit.
6. Infinite Jest is Infinite Jest. I don't need to say more.
7. The Fall. This book I read at an extremely young age and ended up mistaking it for a dream I had. It started my love for all science fiction and fantasy.
8. Artemis Fowl. The character of Artemis Fowl stayed with me for a long time after I read the first book. It was the first series I read and sparked a love of extremely long storylines for me.

First!

Over the summer I read Dr. Zhivago, one of the many extremely complex, long, and entertaining Russian novels which dot the literary landscape. This novel had such great storytelling because of its interwoven plot lines, its breadth of scope, and its depiction of extreme personal change. The interwoven plot lines, as with any novel in its style ( Anna Karenina comes to mind ), provoke many moments of realization that the assumptions the reader has made are entirely wrong, as when in Dr. Zhivago a long presumed dead soldier is many chapters later revealed to just have been captured. The breadth of scope is likewise incredible in the novel, with the story spanning from the peasant towns of the Urals to the burned out husk of Moscow after the Russian Civil War. The sheer scope of the story is breathtaking and always keeps the plot turning in ever different directions. The extreme personal change in Dr. Zhivago is almost icing on the cake, but the myriad drastic transformations undergone by the characters over the time span of the book always added more tension and excitement to the plot even as the page count of this already rather difficult book crept higher and higher. It is this ability to forestall fatigue in the face of length and density that marks Dr. Zhivago as a novel with a truly remarkable knack for storytelling.

One passage in Dr. Zhivago, which references scenes long since past and serves to introduce a new storyline, is especially endemic of the novel's storytelling prowess:
"I've brought a  letter for your friend. It's lucky for him I once had a job at the post office. I don't know how many hands it's been through, it's from Moscow and it's been five months on the way. They couldn't find the addressee. At last they thought of asking me and I knew, of course--he once came to me for a haircut."
The long letter, written on many sheets of paper, crumpled and soiled in its tattered envelope, which had been opened at the post office, was from Tonia. The doctor found it in his hands without knowing how it had got there; he had not noticed Lara handing it to him. When he began reading it he was still conscious of being in Yuriatin, in Lara's house, but gradually, as he read on, he lost all realization of it.