5 Stars for As You Like It

This is my first Shakespeare comedy, at least reading it straight through. First, I picked it up to read, because the school I teach at has a number of these books in the classroom. Books are certainly a luxury at my school. Second, I've been teaching Othello the past few years along with The Crucible, and The Great Gatsby, so I needed an uplift, something I knew would end well. Last, the premise of this particular comedy drew me in because it appealed to a theme of rediscovery of oneself especially when the idea of home is lost. In this play, the main love birds Orlando and Rosalind are banished. Sure they fall in love all Romeo and Juliet style, but unlike the star-crossed lovers they have to discover an inner strength accepting a new home and a new life unlike the wealthy one they have been accustomed. This theme of acceptance and self-discovery lends itself to the young person leaving home and embarking upon the forest of Arden/college/workforce/etc.

After reading this silly play, I found a number of reasons to recommend it...

1. It will make you laugh out loud. The scenes between Rosalind as Ganymede and Orlando were absurdly silly to the point of belly aching laughter.

Rosalind: (dressed as the man Ganymede)"What would you say to me now, an I were your very, very Rosalind?"
Orlando: "I would kiss before I spoke."
Rosalind (dressed as the man Ganymede): "Nay, you were better speak first..."

2. Memorable lines I now know the origin of:

"no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner love but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked each other the reason..."
"All the world's a stage, And all the women and men merely players."

3. Touchstone: An Aristotle clown.

On the lie of good manners: "All of these you may avoid but the lie direct; and you may avoid that too, with an 'If'."

4. Rosalind: The woman mastermind behind the inevitable happy ending. She is brilliantly clever. Her character is one of the reasons Shakespeare was ahead of his time with ideas of feminism. Plus, as mentioned previously I could not read about Desdemona's outcome under the tragic Othello again. My heart couldn't take it.

There are many other reasons to recommend this play, but these stand out the most to me.

5 Stars for Westlake Soul

 "Wouldn't it be nice," for a cool beach boy dude like Westlake Soul to wake up from a vegetative state that resulted from a surfing accident? Wouldn't it be nice to see him marry his first love or someone equal to the romance induced by Beethoven's Sonata Pathétique – no. 5? Wouldn't it be nice to see superhero/genius Westlake Soul defeat his enemy - Dr. Quietus?

Westlake Soul by Rio Youers is a journey awaiting not especially an ending, but - perhaps heartbreaking resolution. I fell in love with Westlake's voice, his love of life through his optimism for it and not in one relationship, but all of his relationships along the human spectrum of emotion that strumed with The Beach Boys, and Beethoven.

Further...

Despite the sad premise, Youers decorated every word with echoing hope. It is the book that makes you dive back into your own psyche and dig for what makes you stay golden, for me, this is only found in a "Box of Rain" battling my own supervillain, the infamous Sandman.

I listened to this book via audio in a young Big Lebowski voice that reeked in surfer dude making the slang adorable, and even funny. Last, I am hoping to find a printed copy. I'd like to gift it to another soul looking to stay golden. I highly recommend this book.

5 Stars for Lyndsay Fayes's Gods of Gotham

The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye is an extraordinary read. Highly recommended by a good friend, this book turned my friend into a great one. Great friendships are certainly underlined with books like The Gods of Gotham.

On the surface, this book is a mystery for murder, but beneath the many layers of plot, motive, red herrings, and need of justice this book is a journey for the hero, one in which he discovers a little hero in himself despite some heartbreaking circumstance. I fell in love with Timothy Wilde, the narrator of the novel. Cut raw in bland honesty, he came away from the ugliness and beauty of 1849 New York with humility and forgiveness. The characters around him drawn equally in weight only added to his characterization, especially his brother, Val, a foil in every way. So, when the book showed Val's softer side, shock knocked me as hard as it did Timothy.

Setting the characters aside, the setting breathed authenticity through every sense even the sixth one. The scene opening up to the murders and graves are especially heartbreaking without pestering a reader with gruesome images that linger, no Faye left me with something deeper probing my very humanity about the wrongness in murder.

Setting the beautiful descriptives aside, and recalling the mystery, Wilde revealed the culprit(s) in a twisted probable scenario that lead to shocking, complicated truths. I highly recommend this book to mystery lovers, but also to those who enjoy a character driven novel bent upon truth and justice and not abstractly.

5 Stars for Purgatorio by the Italian writer Dante Alighieri

Upon setting out to read Purgatorio by the Italian writer Dante Alighieri, (with cliff notes, end notes and google) I realized much of it didn't come together, so I took a step back after reading and picked up the BBC version of The Divine Comedy. I suppose one has to go through Hell to get to Heaven, and this is what I did in my journey to understand this fantastical beast breathing fire, redemption and ultimate humility and grace inside a long narrative poem.

Inferno made me sympathize heavily with Virgil, whereas Purgatorio expected me to already understand why he came to reside in Hell.  The fourth circle of Hell paralleled strongly with Dante's darkness inside himself contemplating darker choices. Although every soul coming in contact with Dante saw his breath, and saw he still lived. It was the realms like pride, anger and hopelessness that drew me towards Dante's humanity which came in contact with my own.

Paradiso detailed the art of both Inferno and Purgatorio answering questions of hope, faith and ultimately love. The abstract became concrete in God's light and some Italian opera sounding overwhelmingly angelic. It is a beautiful poem with images both horrific and impressionistic. In the end, there seemed to be two ways to view it: 1. literally 2. as a sermon of ethics and morality. I think I took a little of both, and will be revisiting this poem for years to come.

Five Stars for the show NOS4A2

NOS4A2 is one of the best tv series shows I've watched in a long time. It is certainly not average. First, it is not often a show can make the pay off the book does. I read NOS4A2 several years ago and the concept, plot detail and strength of the female lead blew me away.

After watching the first three episodes of this series, I am in awe once more plus the tv series offers up a few sympathy cards for good and evil that were not present in the book adding to unbelievable characterization.

Every character in the series is completely flushed out, and I don't mean solely through their past, but also the actions of their present and all the neat mannerisms drawn in their favor.

The lead protagonist may be a young Jennifer Lawrence. She possesses all the subtle nuances to create both sympathy and respect. Zachary Quinto playing Charlie has the seductive charm every great villain should possess. I look at him and think Joker/Hannibal/Master Vampire from the book Salem's Lot. He's scary - real scary, remember Quinto in American Horror Story. Besides being scary with a fantastic cast, this is a great concept pushed and sewn together with a Singer and believe me I am singing praises. I cannot wait to see the rest of the season.

4 Stars for Sleeping Beauty

As far as concept goes, Stephen King will not disappoint. Sleeping Beauties by both Kings, Stephen and his son, Owen is not an exception. The story is not one especially horrifying, but more mystifying posing questions like: 1. What would happen if all the women in the world fell asleep inside a butterfly-like cocoon that posed deadly consequences if removed. 2. What would happen to all the men in the world if there were no women? 3. What would happen in a world of women without men?

Focused in a small Appalachia region in an impoverished town, a psychologist, and a sheriff fight to protect a possible cure (a woman named Eve Black) to the sleeping disease known as Aurora - the disease stealing women and maybe saving the world and beginning it again. And now, this poses another question: Is Aurora something that needs to be cured? By the end of the novel, this might be a question best left for the reader to decide.

Because of the clever concept, fleshing out the characters boiled down to the deflowering of only one onion, the person left to decide the fate of all women. The Kings did a good job of peeling that particular onion; however, there were too many other characters. I could not cling to any of them with the exception of the chief decision maker.

Plot spun itself unraveling to a satisfying ending, but leaving an intricate, ambiguous web. My biggest question being: Who was/is Eve Black? There was certainly a lot of speculation including allusion from Mercutio's famous Queen Mab speech in Romeo and Juliet. Queen Mab is a fairy playing pranks in the minds of her sleeping victims. There is also the choice of a name, Eve, another possible allusion to the Bible's first woman. The idea of her true identity being left to ponder did not bother me because the theories felt like a swirl of rainbow cotton candy turning sugar sweet in my mouth. In the end, who Eve Black is/was did not matter because the fate of all women rested on one.

In addition, I found the idea of two men writing a book analyzing the psychology of a woman's mind refreshing. Refreshing because it was filled with understanding, compassion, and the humility it takes for men and women to live together without some strange unnecessary power struggle.

I recommend the King books not only for story and concept, but for the clairvoyance it takes to understand the human condition in the mind of a woman. Joe Hill, Stephen King's other son, does this as well. I recently had the pleasure of viewing the first three episodes of his NOS4A2 on AMC with a young strong female protagonist. I read the book, NOS4A2 several years ago, and enjoyed it enough to read it in four days. I posted a review here in favor of this book and posted a review on my blog for the new AMC series show, because after all this is a book site not a film site.

Go out and read a King/Hill novel today!

Forgiving your flaws. Embracing your virtues. 5 Stars for The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards at its heart is about forgiveness. David, a doctor, husband, father, and once a child growing up poor with a sick sister makes the choice to give away his own daughter (Phoebe) because she is sick. She simply is born with Downs Syndrome a condition that results because a child is born with an extra chromosome. Notable characteristics of this condition are eyes that slant upward, short stature, and a flat nasal bridge.

Developmentally they are behind their peers and they often make poor judgements combined with impulsive behavior. They are prone to many health issues including heart defects that cause them not to live long; however, there are exceptions to this. David, the protagonist of the story and the memory keeper knows all the this the moment his daughter is born and he combines this knowledge with the sister who caused his family so much pain due to physical defects.

Once being drawn into this book because of the premise, I was further drawn into effects of David's choice to give his daughter away. I wanted to know if happiness and forgiveness is possible after such a choice. Edwards wove the human condition of not just David's feelings, but an intricate pattern of his wife's, son's, surrogate mother's, and finally his own tragic quilt piece into a beautifully odd blanket highlighted by Phoebe's open embrace.

A few years ago, I met a young man with Downs Syndrome and was lucky enough to be in his life on a daily basis for the course of one year. After knowing him, I concluded that his extra chromosome was like an extra sight into the human emotional psyche. He seemed to understand someones's happiness, sadness, and anger before even they did, and often he placed someone else's happiness above his own. He genuinely wanted to make those around him happy though his very simple and rose colored glasses. 

Often I have found myself cynical pondering the flaws of the universe I cannot explain. This young man was like rope in an endless space of darkness. He gave me hope reminding me not of vices but of virtues. Fortunately, his family saw him in the same hope filled light. Kim Edwards understood this with Phoebe, and it was why even the darkest secret can often be forgiven. If you want a story about real forgiveness, read The Memory Keeper's Daughter.