…or, on meeting vs. finishing a reading challenge.

The 2nd Canadian Reading Challenge will close in a few days, and I’m stuck at 12 (”Newfoundlanders and Labradorians” in John’s provincial/territorial classification), that is, one book short of finishing the challenge. I tried to go to the library last week, but to no avail. I have even downloaded an audiobook, but won’t find time to listen to it. So I’m stuck there… and quite happy to be a Newfoundlander/Labradorian!

My experience with this challenge was a good one: I discovered one strange book (Life of Pi), a wonderful story (Water for Elephants), one very good book (The Cellist of Sarajevo) and a true masterpiece (The Gargoyle). The rest was, IMHO, mostly fluff that I bumped into and read to make my standing for this challenge grow. On the other hand, I probably would still have these four books in my TBR list, if they were not to be counted towards the challenge.

So I’m thorn. While I usually meet my reading challenges (if only by the skin of my teeth), mostly I only meet them on the numbers. I rarely stick with my original list (this time around I wanted to read Atwood!), and often add “fluff” just because it makes the numbers turn out fine. So, is that meeting a challenge, or is it just finishing it, I wonder? What do you think?

Oh, by the way, if I am a Newfoundlander/Labradorian, I should know something about the place, right? Here are some fun facts:

• Cape Spear in Newfoundland is the easternmost point of the Northern American continent
• The province’s motto is “Quaerite primum regnum dei” (”Seek ye first the kingdom of God”)
• The province’s tree symbol is the black spruce, the most common tree in Labrador
• The name “Labrador” actually comes from the Portuguese
• Each year, hundreds of icebergs break free from the Arctic and drift in off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador
• The ocean around Newfoundland is home to more than 20 species of whales at one time of the year or another, making Newfoundland one of the best whale viewing locations in the world
• Newfoundland forms an almost perfect equilateral triangle on a map. Port aux Basques to L’Anse aux Meadows to St. John’s are all nearly the same distance apart

(Photo credits: franfiorini on Flickr for the Newfoundland, and luca.candini on Flickr for the Labrador)

The book: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by Frank L. Baum

The edition: Penguin Popular Classics

The story (as if you didn’t know it): Dorothy is kidnapped by a cyclone and finds herself in a wonderful and strange world, where she has to find her way back home with the help of several improbable friends.

My thoughts: while I know the movie quite well, I had never read the book before, so last year when I read Wicked by Gregory Maguire I thought he had invented most things. Not at all: what surprised me the most in this book is that the parts that made it into the movie remained exactly the same, but there were just as many parts that were completely left off. That said, I was disappointed: while imagination worked for the author, I don’t think he worked his fantasy well into the book. Rating: 2/5.

What I liked: there were a few very imaginative worlds, such as the Dainty China Country:

Before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth and shining and white as the bottom of a big platter. Scattered around were many houses made entirely of china and painted in the brightest colors. These houses were quite small, the biggest of them reaching only as high as Dorothy’s waist. [...] But the strangest of all were the people who lived in this queer country. There were milkmaids and shepherdesses, with brightly colored bodices and golden spots all over their gowns; and princesses with most gorgeous frocks of silver and gold and purple; and shepherds dressed in knee breeches with pink and yellow and blue stripes down them, and golden buckles on their shoes; and princes with jeweled crowns upon their heads, wearing ermine robes and satin doublets; and funny clowns in ruffled gowns, with round red spots upon their cheeks and tall, pointed caps. And, strangest of all, these people were all made of china, even to their clothes.

What I didn’t like: unbelievable characters. If the Tin Woodman cries himself rusted when he steps upon a beetle, how can he cut the head of the Wildcat off with no second thought about it? (And this has nothing to do with each of the three friends already having what they want to ask Oz for.)

Nice quotes: the Scarecrow:

“I shall take the heart,” returned the Tin Woodman, “for brains do not make one happy, and happyness is the best thing in the world.”

The Scarecrow again:

“You people with hearts,” he said, “have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful.”

The Cowardly Lion:

“I see we are going to live a little while longer, and I am glad of it, for it must be a very uncomfortable thing not to be alive.”

The leader of the Winged Monkeys:

“…she is protected by the Power of Good, and that is greater than the Power of Evil.”

*****

I read this book as part of Carl’s Once Upon a Time III challenge - The Journey. The Challenge ended yesterday, so I am a bit late in posting, but I did read the book in time (during the April Read-a-Thon!). Thank you, Carl, for the challenge, I hope to be reading more fantasy in the future!

Mi allontano per qualche giorno e succede di tutto. Un mio vecchio cliente tira le cuoia, una delle maggiori catene di parchi fa lo stesso, e per finire LinkedIn fa arrabbiare i traduttori. Sembra perciò opportuna la striscia di xkcd.com di oggi, intitolata Apocalypse.

Scrivo di tutto ciò semplicemente per sottolineare quanto notato da un utente Twitter nel corso di questa discussione: con la diffusione e l’uso di Twitter, il suffisso usato in inglese per creare neologismi riferiti a scandali di vario tipo smette di essere -gate (Watergate) e diventa il più trasparente -fail.

(Nota: per chi, come me, non avesse capito il fumetto, aggiungo la spiegazione del mio matematico preferito: i personaggi scrivono un articolo di matematica da far firmare a Erdos per avere poi numero di Erdos uguale a 1, cosa che ormai altrimenti non è più possibile)

Dopo il post di qualche giorno fa, ho trovato (via) un altro sito che permette di usare Google in modo diverso: 2lingual traduce automaticamente le parole inserite come chiave di ricerca ed esegue la ricerca parallelamente nelle due lingue scelte. Le lingue a disposizione sono per il momento 42. Se lo provate, fatemi sapere cosa ne pensate.

(Photo credits: Danard Vincente su Flickr)

(Parlando d’altro, are che oggi Tetris compia ben 25 anni. Guardate il logo Google per l’occasione)

The book: The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway

The edition: UK paperback edition by Atlantic Book (sadly scattered with typos)

The story: set during the Siege of Sarajevo, the book tells the story of four people, their emotions, their fear, their actions, big and small, and how they cope with the atrocities of the war. The Cellist, deciding to play each day in the street, in the place his neighbours have been killed by a mortar. Arrow, a girl that had to leave her life behind and turn into a counter-sniper, tending her hate for “the men on the mountains”. Kenan and Dragan, two men with two different stories, both trying as best they can to survive, to help their families survive, and above all not to abandon their humanity. Four points of view by insiders on a war, on hatred, on questions that have no answer.

The first sentence: “It screamed downward, splitting air and sky without effort.”

The last sentence: “Her lips move, and a moment before the door splinters off its hinges she says, her voice strong and quiet, ‘My name is Alisa.’”

My thoughts: powerful. Galloway knew what he was doing. While reading, I kept wondering how that was possible, he surely wasn’t in a siege, let alone in the siege of Sarajevo. But still, the horror, the fear, the loss of those simple things that make up our life, that make us human, it was all there, and it was almost scary for how much true to life it sounded. (OK, so I have no experience of war, obviously, and cannot really tell if it is realistic or not. But it felt real). Rating: 4/5.

What I liked most: the style. Simple, straightforward, it reads like a newspaper report, and still it is able to bring emotions through, to discuss identity and fear and everything in between.

What I liked least: the story is based on a real piece of news: during the siege, cellist Vedran Smailovic played Albinoni’s Adagio for 22 days to honour the victims of a shelling who were killed while waiting in line to get some bread. Here you can read the original story run by the NY Times back in July 1992. This, of course, was the inspiration for the novel, as Galloway himself states in the Afterword:

[Vedran Smailovic's] actions inspired this novel, but I have not based the character of the cellist on the real Smailovic.

The author also makes clear that his novel is a work of fiction, inspired, but not based on, Smailovic’s feat, which is only a starting point to write about war-stricken Sarajevo. Still, I was disturbed, while searching the Internet for this review, when I discovered that Galloway had not even spoken to Smailovic before the book was published. I know the debate is now old, but I was unaware of it. I completely liked the book, but find this situation appalling.

Read this if: I guess this will be your book if you are looking for something on the lines of The Diary of Anne Frank, If This Is a Man and other similar war novels (although I read them a lot of time ago and am not quite sure they are on the same lines). Most of all, read this if you are looking for an insight on human beings facing unhuman situations, and on the Balkan war in particular.

Counts as: 2nd Canadian Challenge book No.12; Orbis Terrarum Challenge book No.1 (for Canada, and bilingual minichallenge, for English)