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Posted:
Nov 23, 2012
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Casino Royale

Author: Ian Fleming
First Published: 1953
Publisher: Penguin Books UK
Series: James Bond (Original) #1
192 pages (paperback)

Finally getting around to reading the classic James Bond novels. I’ve always liked the James Bond films (I haven’t seen all of them though) and have been wanting to read the novels but never really got around to it. With Skyfall‘s release, my interest was rekindled and finally, I finished the first book. Here’s hoping I’ll manage to read the other 11 books too!

I’ve seen the movie version of this before, a couple of times in fact. For those of you who wonder if they should read the book first or watch the movie — honestly, I don’t think it matters. The movie does follow the book pretty well, but due to the fact they take place in two different decades, the movie and book do have some differences too. Personally, I like the movie more but that’s probably because I’m much more of a visual person when it comes to action/thriller type stories, though I did really enjoy reading this original novel as well.

Casino Royale is where famous fictional 007 agent, James Bond, makes his debut. He is sent on a mission — to financially ruin a Soviet operative named Le Chiffre at baccarat so that SMERSH, the organization Le Chiffre works for, will force him to quit … or dispose of him. James Bond, along with the help of  his friend Mathis, an American CIA agent named Felix Leiter, and the beautiful Vesper Lynd from Section S back in London, Bond battles Le Chiffre at the card table with 50 million francs at stake. Bond and Le Chiffre’s luck and skill rise and fall, and several attempts are made on Bond’s life, which he manages to avoid — until Vesper is kidnapped and Bond is led into a torturous trap.

I really liked this book! First off, I just want to make it clear I have no idea what baccarat is. In the movie, they played poker. I barely understand poker, but I have a general idea of how it’s played. They play baccarat in this book and there are some lengthy passages about making the right move and wondering what the opponent will do and what cards he may have … that all went over my head. I skimmed those paragraphs, to be honest. However, really, you don’t need to understand baccarat to figure out what’s going on, and I don’t feel I missed much by skimming these paragraphs about baccarat strategies.

Anyway, to continue, you are dropped into the middle of Bond’s world. There’s some background information on the nature of his mission, but other than that, Bond doesn’t reveal too much about his own history or anything like that. I felt the beginning began kind of abruptly, but I quickly recovered from that. It’s really easy to read and it’s short too. Simple, very enjoyable.

I did notice Bond has quite the sexist attitude, which jumped out at me, probably because we’re in 2012 here and if anybody said the things he thought, well, they would be in for a telling. However, I do realize this book was published more than 50 years ago so the attitude is partly a product of the time. It’s also simply a part of Bond’s character. He’s self-sufficient and proud he can get things done on his own; he doesn’t feel he needs a woman helping him, and if he had one she would only slow him down. Granted, I didn’t think Vesper was that useless or weak, or anything like that, though she did get kidnapped. She’s described as quite intelligent. In any case, if you are a strong feminist who cannot overlook historical contexts of novels, then perhaps skip all the James Bond novels because I’m pretty sure Bond’s going to be like this in all of them.

People tell me that book-Bond is quite different from movie-Bond, except Daniel Craig’s version. From what I hear, Daniel Craig’s film version of Bond is the closest to book-Bond. In the movies, Bond is typically shown as a perfect, suave gentleman with classy, expensive tastes. I think this is especially true of the Sean Connery film versions. In this book, I did see quite a bit of that classy Bond. He’s not as suave, a bit rough around the edges, but definitely sophisticated. I think it’s interesting seeing the differences between book and movie portrayals, and I wonder if Bond will stay this way throughout the books, or if he will shift and change like in the movies.

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Posted:
Sep 12, 2012
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The Invisible Man

Author: H.G. Wells
First Published: 1897
Publisher: Modern Library
162 pages (paperback)

The first H.G. Wells book I ever read was The Island of Doctor Moreau, and even though I’ve only read one of his books, I liked it enough that I considered myself a fan of his works. The Invisible Man is now my second Wells book. I picked it up as an easy and light read for commuting to and from school. It’s great reading some of the first science fiction stories written, and The Invisible Man is one that, for me, has always seemed like a pretty famous one. I really enjoyed this book, it was clear and easy to read.

The story begins with innkeepers Mr. and Mrs. Hall taking in a mysterious, nameless guest who is dressed in a hat and heavy coat, with bandages wrapped all around him. The stranger keeps to himself in his room for the most part, but everyone begins to grow suspicious about him. Eventually, they find out this stranger, Griffin, is an invisible man! He was originally a scientist, and being invisible was interesting and neat at first, but he quickly realized how burdensome it was. He is trying to become visible again, but with no luck so far. When no one will help him and try to capture him, Griffin’s temper fires up and plots a reign of terror against the small town.

I thought at first, being an invisible man, it might be about a guy who was scared about what was happening to him and desperately trying to fix himself. I suppose that’s what I would do if I ever found myself in his position. I never expected the invisible man to go crazy and start trying to kill people! When I thought about it, I guess it does make sense though. Being invisible surely could drive someone mental, and it does feel like Griffin, in this book, felt angrily jealous of visible people. I do think he started to go off his rocker there a bit, towards the end, though I think he was a person with anger issues to begin with. It’s really quite crazy how Griffin, a man people can’t even see, stirs up an entire town to start a sort of witch hunt for him. I mean, the guy’s invisible, you can’t see him! How can you find someone that is literally impossible to see? It kind of goes to show that anyone can cause a ripple in a pond, although of course, it helped that Griffin was sufficiently ambitious already.

This is science fiction after all, and I was pleased that there was an scientific explanation for how it is possible Griffin became invisible at all. Of course, it’s pseudo-science since humans can’t really become invisible (… as far as I know … !!) but it just goes to show how Wells established himself as a sci-fi writer and not simply a fantasy writer. Otherwise, this entire story can be brushed off with a magical explanation. But it’s not magic, it’s science!

This was a great read and it’s a very short book to boot, so if you like sci-fi, or you like classics, or you just like books in general, try giving this book a go!

P.S. The book edition I posted for this review is not the actual edition I read. I actually read this edition, which is free ebook with the iBook app, on my iPhone. It didn’t have a “cover”, so I just picked a random one as a stand in. I didn’t actually read this Modern Library classic edition, but I liked the cover.

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Posted:
Sep 3, 2012
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Anna Karenina

Author: Leo Tolstoy
First Published: 1873
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
963 pages (paperback)

It took me just a few days over a month to finally finish reading this, though I did have large gaps in the month where I didn’t read it at all. Super long and detailed, I’m really glad I read this although there are parts I wish weren’t there. For those of you who don’t know, Anna Karenina is a pretty famous piece of literature, originally published in Russian over a hundred years ago (1873). It’s recently becoming a movie (again), starring Keira Knightley as the title character, which is actually what motivated me to finally take this book off my to be read pile.

Anna Karenina is a long story, but a short synopsis of it would be that Anna and her husband, Karenin, are living quite normally in Russia’s upper class society. The story begins with Anna’s brother, Stiva, having an affair outside of his marriage, and Anna travels to her sister-in-law’s house to convince her not to divorce her brother. Ironically, Anna meets Count Vronsky at this time and begins an affair with him, though she did make a small attempt in resisting him at first. Vronsky expresses his wish to marry Anna if she can divorce her husband, but Anna knows her position in society will never be the same as a divorced woman so she declines at first. The two move travel around Europe for a bit, while Karenin begins preparations to divorce Anna but later decides not to and just to leave things as they are. As society’s doors close one by one towards Anna, Anna becomes increasingly bitter about how Vronsky is still able to enjoy society and go out, essentially living a “bachelor’s life”, even though he assures her that he is in love with her only.

Parallel to this plot is also the story of Stiva’s wife’s sister, Kitty, and a man named Levin. Kitty was originally in love with Vronsky and pretty sure he was going to propose to her, so when Levin proposed to Kitty, she rejected him. Of course, Vronsky ended up leaving with Anna and Kitty becomes horribly embarrassed and upset with herself. The other plot is about how Levin and Kitty end up coming back together and their own forays into married life. My summary of this second plot is quite short, but its actually just as big a part of this book as Anna and Vronsky’s story.

Anna Karenina is not for everyone, I’ll just say that now. It’s not so much a story as it is a snapshot of Russian life during that time period. It’s realism at its most realistic, and very detailed. I found the actual plot of the story very wonderful and engrossing, I loved it; however, some of the chapters of the book were just so detailed with realistic Russian life that I admit I got bored at times, which is really why it took me so long to get through this. There would be long chapters devoted to explaining Russian agriculture, farming and the peasants; Russian government; Russian society and how things “worked” back then, and more. It was quite a lot to take in, and I can’t say I’m particularly interested in reading about the difference between English and Russian farming techniques. I admit, I kind of wish it was all condensed more, it would have helped with the length and focused on the story more, in my opinion.

With that said, I really, truly enjoyed the actual story. I liked reading about Anna and Vronsky much more than Kitty and Levin, although the latter was interesting to read too. It was fun drawing parallels between the two. Anna and Vronsky end up in a whirlwind romance that pretty much destroys Anna’s reputation, whereas Kitty and Levin took it a bit more slowly, a bit more unsure of themselves, and though they had some horrible fights, they ended up having a very lovely and loving family. Also, there was Anna’s brother, Stiva and his wife Dolly. Anna had an affair and everyone shunned her, while Stiva, when he had an affair, had essentially no consequences happen to him other than his wife being upset for a while. Also, Vronsky, as a participant in an affair, also did not have society shunned to him. The book displays this double standard quite blatantly, and it’s clear that Anna’s circumstances are also a result of her sex, and not just some bad decisions.

As for characters, I really liked Vronsky’s character the best. Before I entered the story, I was under the impression that Vronsky doesn’t really love Anna and he was just being a playboy, but as the book continued, I felt Vronsky really did love Anna — he just wasn’t about to give up his social life and everything for her too, which is what Anna wanted him to do because she became increasingly insecure with their relationship since they were not married. Somehow, I just felt the most sorry for Vronsky in the end, because I feel he truly was in love with Anna. I felt Anna was almost becoming a bit crazy by the end of the book, she was just so depressed and paranoid that her lover was out and about with girls. Clearly, being married was an important way of securing a relationship but it is rather unfortunate that Anna’s husband did not grant her a divorce.

I’m a bit torn with rating this book. I really loved the story but some parts of the book felt a bit like reading a textbook on 1800s Russia or something, and I didn’t like those parts at all. I thought about just giving it a middle of the road rating (a 3) but that didn’t feel quite right. I gave the book some time to sink in and decided to rate it based on my overall feelings for the book. Anyway, can’t wait to see the 2012 movie!

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Posted:
Aug 18, 2012
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The Great Gatsby

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
First Published: 1925
Publisher: Arcturus
144 pages (paperback)

Finally got around to reading The Great Gatsby. I don’t know why I didn’t earlier — it’s very short,  fairly interesting and can easily up my list of classic books I read this year, haha. To my understanding, many American kids have to read it for school at one point, but I never went to school in America so this is my very first time reading it. I enjoyed it, and look forward to the movie coming out in late 2012 too  ;)

The Great Gatsby involves the narrator, a man named Nick Carraway, who moves next door to a giant mansion owned by Jay Gatsby. Gatsby holds parties at his house all the time, very large and lavish parties where most of the guests are people who wandered in rather than invited. One day, Nick is invited by Gatsby to come to his party so he does. Nick and Gatsby eventually become friends. Later, Nick finds out Gatsby bought the mansion and throws these huge parties because he wants to attract the attention of Nick’s cousin, Daisy, who lives across the water from the both of them. Gatsby met Daisy a long time ago, but because he had to go do his war service, he left her behind and when he came back, she was already married to someone else. At last, Gatsby and Daisy reunite, but the reunion does not go as anyone planned.

Sometimes people feel daunted having to read a classic book because they might find it difficult to read or understanding, but The Great Gatsby is actually a very simple read. The prose is lovely without being complicated. It’s a book that describes a particular time period in American history, the jazz age, and I actually read this book listen to some quiet jazz music in the background — it really puts you in the mood, and helped me immerse myself into the time period more easily.

This is not a particularly character driven book, and is more about events, so following that sort of plot may be easier as well. I like plot-orientated books much more than character driven ones, but a part of me did wish the characters were flesh out a bit more. Our narrator came off as horribly flat and passive, though I can forgive him easily since I think his only role in the book was to be the voice. Gatsby started off as a mysterious wealthy man but as I read on, it was apparent that he was a desperate, hopelessly-in-love kind of guy, to the point it’s a little pathetic. Daisy was kind of a twit who didn’t seem to really know what she wanted. Tom was racist and sexist by today’s standards so I didn’t really like him, although yes, he’s most likely just a product of his time. About the only character I liked at all was Jordan Baker, I think. Still, all these characters combined together did the job of describing what it was like to live in the Jazz Age, I think, and what kind of dreams and hopes people had — just a bit of a shame that most of them I didn’t find all that likeable.

I think the best way to describe how much I liked this book was that the entire time I was “mildly interested”. Not terribly addicted but not so bored that I wanted to put it down either. Just interested enough to keep reading it. All in all, it’s a good book (and if you’re a kid in high school being assigned this to read, don’t fret, it’s really not a bad book at all!)

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Posted:
Jun 1, 2012
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1984

Author: George Orwell
First Published:  1949
Publisher: Penguin
326 pages (paperback)

I told myself I will try to read more classics this year, so this is the beginnings of my attempt. I have been wanting to read 1984 for a while now. It’s one of those books where you hear a lot about it, and perhaps even know most of the entire story already, despite having not read it yet, because it is so entrenched in our culture. Terms like ‘big brother’ and ‘thought police’ are used in everyday vernacular, and they originated from this book. I suppose I set myself up to expect a lot from this book but it wasn’t exactly what I expected. I wasn’t disappointed with it, per se, though I had expected to like it a lot more. I do like it though.

1984 is the future (the book was written in 1949). The book centers around the character, Winston Smith. I guess you can say he is a pretty ordinary guy. He works as a member of the Outer Party, and on the outside, he acts just like every other Big Brother loving citizen of the country of Oceania. On the inside, however, he loathes the Party and their extremely controlling ways. When he falls in love with a woman named Julia, who also despises the Party, Winston finds his life in constant danger, as their relationship would surely be not approved by the Party. Together, the two of them are drawn to the idea of overthrowing the Party and Big Brother, and unexpectantly find a way that just might make that happen.

My favourite thing about the book is the world Orwell creates. It is scarily similar to many things happening in our world today! It’s almost like Orwell had some prophetic abilities. On the same topic, the world in the book is, of course, in many ways, very different from our real world, and I felt too much of Part 1 and a considerable chunk of Part 2 were spent describing it and giving the history. I think I would have liked it if it was much condensed or if the information was presented in a different manner. I have no problems with the content, it’s just that it started to feel less of a story, and more of an essay.

The characters were understandably a bit bland. I mean, they do live in a very controlling world where the government basically wants everyone to act like sheep and just do what they say. Anybody who sticks out is ‘vaporized’, erased from existence. So it’s completely understandable that the characters aren’t going to be the most interesting characters in the world since they are trying their best to blend in and avoid notice. Anyway, this story isn’t about characters as individuals. The focus is definitely on the society as a whole. The slogans such as FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH and WAR IS PEACE sounds impossible, yet at the same time, the book explains it in such a way that it does sound possible in their world, and when you understand it, the haunting world of 1984 is made even more hopeless — a stark contrast to how the Party portrays their world, as a utopia.

I really enjoyed the ending, that was also one of my favourite things about this book. It’s definitely not a hero-saves-the-world kind of ending — quite the opposite if you know what I mean. And after reading it, I admit I felt kind of depressed because it really does make you feel utterly hopeless. It makes the world of 1984 ever more chilling, to know that even the protagonist can’t escape. You will bow to Big Brother, and if not, well, you never existed. Everyone ends up loving Big Brother, one way or another.

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Posted:
Mar 7, 2012
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Author: Douglas Adams
Published: January 1979
Publisher: Picador
Series: Hitchhiker’s Guide #1
180 pages

I had heard of this book before I read it, but I had no idea what it was about. I never saw the movie either, so I walked into this experience truly not knowing what to expect at all.

It’s a regular day for Arthur Dent (well, sort of — he’s trying to stop the city from bulldozing his house to build a new highway). To his surprise, his best friend of fifteen years, Ford, reveals to him that he is actually an alien and has been hitchhiking around the galaxy — that is, until he got stuck here, on Earth, for the past fifteen years. Ford also lets Arthur know that Earth is about to become demolished for a new hyperspace bypass but no worries, he’s got a ride hooked up for the two of them before Earth explodes. The two of them eventually find their way onto the ship, the Heart of Gold, and through the use of its Improbability Drive, encounter all sorts of strange, bizarre coincidences …

First things first, this book is kind of plotless. I’ll totally admit that. It doesn’t really seem to have a point, a greater goal that the characters are striving towards. There’s some vague mysteries that don’t really seem too important, and the ending of the book was really not an ending at all, more like an abrupt stop. I’m not going to point out the bizarre coincidences though, just because those are meant to be in the story via Improbability Drive and in a strange way, made sense to me. Other readers may not feel the same way though.

With that said, I actually liked the book a lot. It was really funny and quirky to me, kind of like watching a cartoon show. There were some subtle digs and social commentary as well, which I always love, though admittedly they were overshadowed by the silliness of the entire story. Sure, things don’t make sense a lot, but it fits with the type of humor this book contains. Super intelligent mice, depressed robots, luxury planet building businesses … this book is like a pot where the author threw every crazy idea together just to see what happens. That, along with Douglas Adams’ witty writing style just hit the spot for me.

I also finally discovered where a lot of pop culture sayings come from now: this book! Like, “Don’t Panic” and how the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42, and some other ones. I heard of those sayings before and never knew where they came from. I just figured they were from some old TV show I never watched because I was too young or whatever. Feels kind of satisfying to discover the origin!

I can understand not every reader is going to like this book. If you are a “serious reader” who requires strict structure and whatnot in your books, this book is probably not for you. You definitely need a certain type of sense of humour to enjoy this book and have to be open to the idea that nothing’s going to make perfect sense. It’ll make some sense, but still, nonsense. This book is definitely one of those hit-or-miss types of books — you’re either gonna like it or dislike it for what it is. However, if it’s of any persuasion, most people seem to enjoy it and it is often considered one of the modern classics of literature.

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