Saturday, September 18, 2010

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO....






The American Library Association publishes a list every year that references those titles that were challenged during the last calendar year. After 21 years in publication, John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany still has the dubious honor of making the list. The enduring story of the friendship between two boys and its ability to survive even the ultimate tragedy is one of this prolific American authors treasures. While not without it's flaws, it does meander a bit, the reader is rewarded with a multi-faceted story that contains elements of mystery, pathos and humor. It's also one of those that Hollywood made into a movie several years ago starring Jim Carey. It was an entertaining but the book was so much better, check it out and see for yourself. (Click on the cover art for current availability.)

One of the original reviews: /* Starred Review */ Irving's novels, which often begin in autobiographical commonplace, get transformed along the way: sometimes into fairy tale (The Hotel New Hampshire), sometimes into modern-day ironic fable (The World According to Garp). This one--set in New Hampshire in the 50's and 60's--is a little of both, but not enough of either: its tone is finally too self-righteous to be fully convincing as fiction. In 1953, Owen Meany--a physically tiny man with a big voice who believes he's God's instrument--kills his best friend's mother with a foul ball. His best friend, Johnny Wheelwright, is the book's narrator: from Toronto, where he has lived for some 20 odd years, he tells the story of Owen Meany, who has a voice that "comes from God," of his own "Father Hunt"--Wheelwright is the product of his mother's "little fling"--and of growing up in the Sixties, when some people believed in destiny, others in coincidence. Sweetly moralistic, Wheelwright, who became "a Christian because of Owen Meany," sometimes launches into tirades about Reagan and the Iran/contra fiasco, but mostly he tells Owen's story: Meany, who always writes and speaks in the uppercase, is the real mouthpiece here, though Wheelwright is his Nick Carraway. Meany, after hitting "that fated baseball," no longer believes in accidents: his parents, in the granite business, convince him that he's the product of a virgin birth (we learn late in the book). His sense of destiny serves him well: not only does he play the Christ child in a Christmas pageant and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, but his pontificating "Voice" becomes a great power at the prep school he attends with Johnny (there are some marvelous sent-ups of prep school), and he "sees" the circumstances and the date of his own death. After much inventive detail (as well as much slapstick and whimsy dealing with Meany's tiny size and strange voice) and the working-out of a three-way relationship involving Meany, Johnny, and his cousin Hester, Meany saws off Johnny's finger in order to keep him out of Vietnam, dies as he foresaw, and reveals to Johnny from beyond the grave that the local Congregationalist minister is his real father. Vintage Irving--though here Dickensian coincidence, an Irving staple, becomes the subject of the book rather than a technique. The result is a novel that seems sincere but turns too bombastic and insistent in its opinions about literature, religion, and politics. (Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 1989)

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

CELEBRATE READING

Banned Book Week, a time to recognize and celebrate our freedom to read and create an awareness of the importance of our First Amendment rights, is celebrated yearly and this year the week of September 25-October 2 has been designated for this event. It is an important week for those who care about reading and the Libraries and a good time to read or reread one of the titles that has been placed on the list.

Every year I am surprised to find that many
of the books which are regulars on the most challenged list are also on my list of personal favorites and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee certainly tops that list. Targeted regularly for racial bias, inappropriate language and containing themes that are not suitable for younger readers it fortunately is still on most Library shelves.

Told in the voice of an eight-year-old girl this work deals with a variety of themes that range from coming of age to prejudice and injustice, Lee’s book creates a vivid picture of an unusual family, the small town atmosphere of the South in the 30’s and issues that still haunt our country. If you have not read this one, add it to your list. If you have then it may be time to revisit an old friend. To check availability of this in the Glendale Public Library collection, please click on the cover art.

One of the original reviews for To Kill a Mockingbird:

/* Starred Review */ A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy -- and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference -- but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends. (Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1960)

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