What We Are Reading

If not for the damning intuition of Preston Applebaum, Rastaman from New Jersey, aka Pelekekona Keohokalole – Kona for short, cetacean biologist Nathan Quinn may never have been abducted. Set in the tropical waters of Hawaii, a deranged Christopher Moore pens yet another epic novel.

Nate (Nathan) teams up with Clay Demodocus (an invulnerable human, really!) on a life-long journey to find out “Why the Winged Whale Sings.” More than ably aided by his research assistant, fortuitously by way of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Amy Earhart, Nate and Kona accidentally trip over the closely guarded secret meaning of whale songs. Their hand forced, the Guardians abscond with Nate to a sub-oceanic world unknown to the dwellers of terra firma, setting in motion a mystery of such amazing adventure one can only describe it as Dr. Seuss writes “The Abyss.”

Or, perhaps the author fell into a hallucinogenic slumber, while reading the story of Jonah.

Jimmy Carter scrutinizes the most heated topics in today’s socio-economic and political arena. Since leaving the Presidency, he has pursued humanitarian causes with his wife Rosalynn, through their leadership at The Carter Center. Drawing on his Evangelical Christian faith, he warns the people of our country about the dangers of an emerging fundamentalism.

As a former President, sworn to uphold the Constitution, he has first-hand experience wrestling with personal religious beliefs, in conflict with established laws. As a former officer in the US Navy, he understands the need for military readiness, yet clearly depicts the current administration’s departure from the conscientious and honest appraisal of threats to our country. He asks pointed questions and provides important data and reflection, concerning this country’s moral heritage.

Why are we, as a nation, more concerned about gay marriage than we are about environmental and cultural degradation, and the resulting world we will leave our children? When did scientific understanding and discovery ever threaten our belief in a higher power? Why are we attacking human rights and discarding our national honor, in the name of fighting terrorism, while ostracizing the world? How is it we have come to hiding the reality of the attrition of war on the civilian population of Iraq, rationalizing secrecy as a means to manipulate the American people’s comprehension of what is really happening? For what reasons did we squander the humanitarian capital showed us by the nations of the world because of 9/11, and turn it into global reproach?

Some would see this as a hop-scotch address. In actuality, it is a focused essay on disparate issues that are polarizing us as a nation. Carter’s self-effacing appraisal of himself declares he is a better ex-President, than he was ever a President. Perhaps he is just too competent a humane being to be a successful politician?

William Langewiesche takes us to a place as dangerous, intoxicating and tumultuous as the historical Wild West. 45,000 commercial, sea-going vessels ply the earth’s vast oceans, in search of commerce and profit. How can world organizations register, keep track of and police such a fleet?

How do pirates like those off the coast of Somalia and in the Straights of Malacca avoid prosecution? Did you know that six million cargo containers enter US ports each year? And only three percent are inspected. How are these toxic colossuses dismantled and scrapped once there life span has expired? What if they stay on rough seas too long, or are ill-designed?

This is a whole other world.

Sometimes stories are wonderful. Sometimes they are good. And sometimes you end up with something of a mixed review. This and the following are mixed reviews.

Cornelia Funke has been called “the German J.K. Rowling.” The Thief Lord, one of her bestselling novels, follows the story of Bo and Prosper, two brothers who run away from their scheming aunt to Venice. There, they meet up with the Thief Lord (an Italian version of Dickens’ Artful Dodger) who invites them to join his gang of thieves. Their aunt pursues them to Venice, a hired detective starts to follow them, a mysterious old man asks the Thief Lord to steal a strange object, and all this takes place against the exotic backdrop of Venice’s famous maze of canals and cathedrals.

Sounds exciting, no? Well, I hate to say it, but something must have gotten lost in the translation, because for the first half of the book, I could scarcely make myself read anymore, I just found it so boring. The characters did not seem realistic. Even though we have a gang of kid thieves sneaking around Venice, the plot dragged and it felt like nothing was happening. It wasn’t until the second half of the book that things started to pick up and the story gained some traction. Then, the mysterious stolen object turns out to be something quite magical. In the end, the story turned out better than I thought it would, but was still rather less than I had hoped it would be.

The Newberry Award-winning Tale of Despereaux tells the story of a mouse who falls in love with a (human) princess and saves her from the hands (or rather, claws) of an evil, dungeon-dwelling rat. DiCamillo, (author of Newberry Award-winning Because of Winn Dixie), tells this fairytale with a quaint, “dear-reader” style narrative. Three of us recently read (or listened to) this story and compared notes on our reactions to it. We found our reviews were decidedly mixed.

The dominant reaction was that the book had its lovely moments, but it left us all somewhat disappointed. I found DiCamillo’s commands to go look the difficult words up in a dictionary and “dear-reader” comments at the end of each chapter rather patronizing. We all found the portrayal of the servant girl, Miggory Sow, who is badly beaten by every adult around her, quite disturbing. The rats in the story are also pretty nasty – they love to run about through the filth in the dungeon and torture prisoners there. One of our favorite characters got killed off abruptly for no apparent reason and I found the ending didn’t quite live up to the build-up it had been given.

On the positive side, the writing is quite well done. The characters are brilliantly written and very funny (on the audio book, the voices are marvelous), and you can’t help butlove Despereaux, the mouse who was “born with his eyes open.” There were also some wonderful messages in the book about love and forgiveness. Still, I couldn’t help thinking, throughout the abuse of Miggory, the “dear reader”-ing, and DiCamillo’s musings about courtly love, perfidy (that's one of the words she tells you to look up), and non-conformity: “Is this book really meant for kids?”