2011's Books: Better, Much Better

Let's forget the failures of the past, shall we? Yes. We. Are. Forgetting. Now.

Here's what I'm hoping to read this year, while also recognizing that this list invariably changes as new books come out and I get distracted by shiny things:

Ancient Classics (and helpers): Metamorphosis, The Aeneid, The Iliad, The War That Killed Achilles, It's All Greek to Me

Classics: Persuasion, Villette

Biography/Autobiography: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Cleopatra, The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century, The Talented Miss Highsmith, Kitchen Confidential

Non-Fiction Travel Tales: Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story, All Over the Map

Other Non-Fiction: Unbroken, Outliers

Fiction: An Object of Beauty, Mockingjay, Russian Winter, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Room, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Brightest Star in the Sky

Historical People, Fictionalized: The Red Queen, Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, The Birth of Venus, Leonardo's Swans, Stealing Athena

For School: The Joy Luck Club, Shakespeare's Henry IV, Persepolis

All I can say is, wow, my taste in books has really changed in the last 10 years.

2010's Final Tally: Pathetic

And so that's where 2010 ended...at #24 with King Arthur. It is, in a word, pathetic. Especially since I am writing this post on January 16. But onto better and brighter things...really...because 2011 will be better and brighter. I hope.

#24: King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, Roger Lancelyn Green

After The Odyssey, my students tackled about half of this King Arthur book. I think they liked it better, simply because they could understand it. It had been awhile since I had read any King Arthur, so I ended up reading the whole thing - it seemed like it would be hard to choose stories if I didn't know what the stories were, you know?

I don't much feel like delving into King Arthur - it is what it is, chivalry, damsels, evil knights, etc - but I will say that I didn't particularly enjoy this edition. Although the introduction makes it clear that these are in fact separate stories and that Green relied on different sources, the book as set up seems to be one continuous narrative. And as a result, the main characters switch personalities at the drop of a hat. In Book One, Arthur is the young king who leads England to its destined glory; he's nearly absent from Books Two and Three and then suddenly in Book Four, he's been transformed into an impotent monarch blindsided by his wife's infidelity. Lancelot flip-flops between faithful and faithless, sickened and set upon his path, depending on the story. And then Mordred - in one chapter, he's ashamed of his deviousness, but then later, he's described as being evil as his nature.

In addition, I didn't understand some of the story choices. Morgana le Fay, Arthur's usual nemesis, barely appears in this version. And then, even stranger, Green identifies Mordred as her son, instead of the commonly accepted son of Arthur and his half sister Morgawse (which then adds an interesting motivation, that of a bastard son fighting his father for his birthright). It was just weird.

#23: The Odyssey, Homer

Speaking of classics, I re-tackled this one in October. I hadn't read The Odyssey since ninth grade but since I was teaching it to ninth graders this year (ahhh, the circle of life), I needed to read it again. I remember liking it the first go-round but this time, I really recognized what a masterwork it is.

So, The Odyssey is an epic poem likely written between 800 B.C. and 700 B.C. about a Trojan War hero named Odysseus. He's brave, strong, and crafty, but he's also an Everyman, representing any individual's ability to be a hero should he/she so choose. Odysseus masterminds the Greeks' victory when he comes up with the idea for the Trojan Horse, but then the winning side pisses off the gods (lesson #1: Don't fuck with Athena) and the victors find that they're all doomed in their journeys home. Odysseus then makes several more mistakes in judgment, landing himself on Poseidon's bad side when he blinds his son, Polyphemus (lesson #2: Don't mess with a sea god when you have to sail home). As a result, Odysseus and his fleet get tossed around by the waves and as they go from port to port, either Odysseus or the crewmen make more mistakes until everyone is dead but Odysseus. Finally, ten years later and worn and torn, and with extensive help from a now-fond Athena, Odysseus makes it home to Ithaca only to find that he's presumed dead and all the eligible bachelors in the area have lodged themselves in his palace in an attempt to woo his wife and become king. Having learned from all of his rash mistakes, Odysseus bides his time and plots with his son until the book culminates in a Quentin Tarantino-style bloodbath in chapter 22. But then, happy ending, the family is reunited and the hero is restored to his rightful place. Fun!

There are so many thousands of things one could talk about with this book but most interesting, I thought, was the lingering question of whether or not Odysseus was truly a hero. For one, he's awfully whiny, especially when we first see him crying on Calypso's island. He also makes some morally questionable decisions and causes a lot of carnage (which perhaps the ancient Greeks didn't find so questionable) - is Odysseus really a hero if nearly everyone who meets him ends up dead? And perhaps most importantly, is Odysseus really a hero if he never has an original thought and takes all his direction from Athena and Zeus? In the end, he doesn't "win" by his own skill - the most important gods just like him better. I think you can see where I come down on this; my co-worker, on the other hand, argues that Odysseus is a hero simply because he keeps going. He's faced with seemingly insurmountable odds and death at every turn but the man keeps on trucking anyway. And I guess that's what makes him an Everyman and an inspiration.

It's even inspired me to read some of the classic classics this year. The Greek plays (ahem, Sophocles) killed my enthusiasm for these sorts of works in tenth grade, but I realize I may have left the canon a little abruptly. So at some point in 2011, I'm aiming to read The Iliad, Charlotte Higgins' It's All Greek to Me, and with some luck Metamorphosis and The Aeneid.