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Fantastic book about a family struggling in the Congo as missionaries. Interesting look at life and religion and how the people of the Congo reacted to Christianity being forced upon them. Also explored the way it shaped the daughter’s lives.

“For certain, Mrs. Price, there are Christians and then there are Christians.”

I liked One Hundred Years of Solitude (#32) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but wasn’t super impressed. I decided to give him another chance and read Love in the Time of Cholera. This time I knew about his writing style and was prepared for the descriptive ramblings of the smaller things in the lives of his characters. However, I enjoyed One Hundred Years of Solitude much more than Cholera and will probably not read anymore of his books.

Love in the Time of Cholera is a love story that follows Florentina Ariza and his love for Fermina Daza throughout his life. Even when she rejects him and marries another man later in life, he never gives up hope that he will be able to love her. The novel describes the lives of Florentina, Fermina and Dr Juvenal Urbino, Fermina’s husband, in such detail that one feels as if they know these characters and the Caribbean setting in which they live. This is the strength of the novel.

She paid no attention to the urgings of the snake charmers who offered her a syrup for eternal love, or to the pleas of the beggars lying in doorways with their running sores, or to the false Indian who tried to sell her a trained alligator. She made a long and detailed tour with no planned itinerary, stopping with no other motive than her unhurried delight in the spirit of things. She entered every doorway where there was something for sale, and everywhere she found something that increased her desire to live. She relished the aroma of vetiver in the cloth in the great chests, she wrapped herself in embossed silks, she laughed at her own laughter when she saw herself in the full-length mirror in The Golden Wire disguised as a woman from Madrid, with a comb in her hair and a fan painted with flowers. In the store that sold imported foods she lifted the lid of a barrell of pickeled herring that reminded her of nights in the northeast when she was a very little girl in San Juan de la Cienaga. She sampled an Alicante sausage that tasted of licorice, and she bought two for Saturday’s breakfast, as well as some slices of cod and a jar or red currants in aguardiente. In the spice shop she crushed leaves of sage and oregano in the palms of her hands for the pure pleasure of smelling them, and bought a handful of cloves, another of star anise, and one each of ginger root and juniper, and she walked away with tears of laughter in her eyes because the smell of the cayenne pepper made her sneeze so much.

Descriptive passages such as that are the only thing worth recommending about the book. As you read about Florentino pining his years away for Fermina but sleeping with many other woman, it’s hard to feel sorry for him. As Fermina experiences the difficulties of marriage and raises her children, she realizes that she does have a good marriage and life. Yes, it might be good for her to find new love late in life, but she had a good life. When Florentino takes a Lolita like turn in his life, I stopped caring and felt the love story was nothing more than a plot device.

I think I may revisit One Hundred Years of Solitude because I have come to appreciate his style of writing and think I may enjoy it more a second time around. The story was at least better than Love in the Time of Cholera. Even with the beautiful writing, I just didn’t care for Love in the Time in Cholera.

Fantastic, loved this book. If it wasn’t for the recommendation a few entries down by LarissaQuixote, I probably would have bypassed this for ages due to lack of knowledge of the novel.

It read like a Bill Bryson book set in 1889. It follows the “adventures” of three men and a dog as they sail down a river. The main plot is interjected with many humorous stories ranging from camping – “camping in out in the rainy weather is not pleasant” – fox terriers, packing, fishing stories and much more. It is very dry humor and I loved every bit of it. All I can say is READ IT!!!

Picking out passages from this book was hard because there were just so many great passages.

You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn’t come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea. . . On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it.

“Begin with breakfast.” (George is so practical.) “Now for breakfast we shall want a frying-pan” – (Harris said it was indigestible; but we merely urged him not to be an ass, and George went on) – “a tea-pot and a kettle, and a methylated spirit stove.”

There is nothing does irritate me more than seeing other peope sitting about doing nothing when I’m working.

Each person has what he doesn’t want, and other people have what he does want.
Married men have wives, and don’t seem to want them; and yound single fellows cry out that they can’t get them. Poor people who can hardly keep themselves have eight hearty children. Rich old couples, with no one to leave their money to, die childless.

Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha was a fascinating read. It was beautifully written and very descriptive. While it is fiction, Sayuri’s memoirs feel very real and true. Sayuri narrates the novel and tells of her life from childhood through adulthood. She describes the trials she experienced being sold to Mother in order to become a geisha and the trials she experienced trying to find love later in life. Set against World War II, Memoirs is also a historical novel that shows how Japan, and the geisha’s, dealt with the devastation of war.
I loved the descriptive writing that makes one feel as if they are in Japan and experiencing the life of a geisha. However, it is sad to realize that Sayuri, or any of the geishas, were really simply slaves. They could not choose their own lives, their lives were chosen for them.

And in fact, the “gei” of “geisha” means “arts,” so the word “geisha” really means “artisan” or “artist.”
bq. She wore the magnificent makeup of a geisha. Her lips were flowering red on a stark white face, with her cheeks tinted a soft pink. Her hair was ornamented with silk flowers and sprigs of unhusked rice. She wore a formal kimono of black, with the crest of the Nitta okiya. When at last I could bring myself to stand, I went into the hall and looked in astonishment at myself in the full length mirror. Beginning at the hem of my gown, an embroidered dragon circled up the bottom of the robe to the middle of my thigh. His mane was woven in threads lacquered with a beautiful reddish tint. His claws and teeth were silver, his eyes gold – real gold.

Middlemarch has been an experience for me. First, I am not finishing it. I am halfway through but just can’t make it any longer. I am not interested in Dorothea and Lydgate or the Victorian politics. I have struggled to get through it for the past 3 – 4 weeks and realize that I am leaving other books out just to struggle through this.
However, some positive things. I learned George Eliot was a woman. Uneducated me thought George was a man and spent a quarter of the novel thinking that.
I enjoyed the episodic nature of the book. It felt like a Victorian Tarantino story, of course without the language and violence, with each Book introducing different characters and intertwining their stories.

I hate leaving a book unfinished, I’ve only done it a few other times – Persuasion, Lolita, Master and Commander – but I just don’t want to waste the time when there are so many other books out there to read.

“Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip,’ returned Wemmick, ’ and take a walk upon your bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch of your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and you may know the end of it, too – but it’s a less pleasant and profitable end.”

This was a short book and was able to read it in about 15 minutes. It’s a simple story of a seagull who wants to be more than is expected of him. Seagulls simply flock and eat. That’s their life but Jonathan wants to fly. He wants to fly faster than any other seagull and perform tricks in the air. This free thinking causes his flock to outcast him. However, free from the flock, he pushes himself to new levels.
I enjoyed it and the book has a great message. Well worth the quick read.

21: Gone With the Wind: Margaret Mitchell
– I enjoyed it but found Scarlett to be a whiny selfish brat

50: The Shell Seekers: Rosamunde Pilcher
– this was a total surprise. Really enjoyed this one

“One is the sharks. They’ll take you if you go out more than knee-deep. Another is the alligators. Then there’s the stone fish – he lies on the beach and looks like a stone until you tread on him, and then he squirts about a pint of poison into you. The Portuguese Men of War aren’t so good either. But the thing that really puts me off is Coral Ear.”
“What’s that?”
“A sort of growth inside your head that comes from getting this fine coral sand into your ear.”

10: Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte
– Enjoyed this one as well. It was slow but I thought Jane Eyre was an interesting character and the crazy wife in the attic was pretty cool.

Not as depressing as Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Felt very long, way too many descriptive passages. Don’t have much to say because I didn’t really like it. I don’t think I’ll read anymore Thomas Hardy after this goal is complete.

This was was good but hard to get through due to all the old English words. It was a sad story about the harsh consequences a bad decision can create. Tess made the mistake of having relations with one man, and her whole life was ruined because of it. She was not able to find love, but when she thought she had, her past killed that relationship. One aspect of the book I liked was Hardy’s insertion of literal allusions. For example:

The isolation of his manner and colour lent him the appearance of a creature from Tophet, who had strayed into the pellucid smokelessness of this region of yellow grain and pale soil. . .

Not knowing where Tophet was, I looked it up and learned that Tophet is where Canaanites sacrificed children to Moloch by burning them alive. It was also a synonym for hell. Knowing this, lends another level of description to this man being described.

Two other passages I want to highlight. The first, I just found funny. It is a descriptive passage that seems silly.

”. . .and he kissed the other side, his lips touching cheeks that were damp and smoothly chill as the skin of the mushrooms in the fields around.”

Hardy is describing Tess’ cheeks as mushrooms. Seems kind of an odd comparison.

A final passage is an uplifting one that takes place towards the beginning of the book. It shows the positive outlook Tess has despite her bad luck.

The past was past; whatever it had been it was no more at hand. Whatever its consequences, time would close over them; they would all in a few years be as if they had never been, and she herself grassed down and forgotten. Meanwhile the trees were just as green as before; the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever.

I liked this little bit of sunshine in her life. Tess’ attitude helped get her through many trials and tribulations in her life.