No. And no and no and never and no.

Naked Lunch has earned the dubious honor of becoming the first book I refused to finish because it was just too disgusting to continue. And if I had any idea what half of the slang words William Burroughs used actually meant, I would probably be even more icked out (incidentally, reading about Burroughs' accidental murder of his wife was more interesting than the book itself).

Gentle reader, if a man ripping out another's man's eye so that he can then have intimate relations with the eye SOCKET sounds a bit much for you, don't attempt this book. Seriously, that was my breaking point, and I don't even know what further nastiness might have followed.

He may look like a nice old man. Don't be fooled.

If anyone out there has any idea why this book was included amongst the greats of literature, please let me know. I am not that squeamish. I made it through A Clockwork Orange! But this was too much. This I cannot do.

Why does this book even exist?

Image found here.

Guess who's back...

Back again. Okay, enough quoting bad Eminem songs.

I didn't realize it had been almost two weeks since I've posted. In that span of time, I've tried, then tried again to muster some interest for The Wings of the Dove (sorry Henry James fans, just couldn't do it), and then I took a nice little break from the norms of the list and read Things Fall Apart. So far, this is the only African novel on the list, and I found it a refreshing change of pace.

I'm considering cheating and watching the movie version of The Wings of the Dove. Also wondering if I should have called this the Helena Bonham Carter Project (how is she in so many of these film adaptations????).

I enjoy reading novels that provide enough factual details that they inspire me to do a little outside research on my own. Reading The Other Boleyn Girl many years ago led me to devour book after book on Henry VIII and his various wives (and to hate Eric Bana forever for his TERRIBLE movie interpretation). While I didn't do quite as much digging into the Nigerian Ibo culture, I found the religious beliefs and cultural ideals revealed in the novel to be interesting (and mostly correct, as best as I can tell). Who knew there were cultures that considered twins an abomination and left them exposed to die in the forest? Not me! My husband, who is a twin, was not a fan!

There's also quite a bit of talk about yams. They eat A LOT of them in the book.

Things Fall Apart tells the story of a man named Okonkwo and how his life and village are changed by the arrival of white missionaries in Africa. And yes, true to Greatest 100 form, it ends sadly. You have been warned.

Stories about the clash of cultures tend to sadden me, as they almost inevitably involve misunderstanding or miscommunication between the two groups. In this particular case, I found it easy to empathize with both sides. I'd be horrified to see helpless babies left to fend for themselves in the forest, as the Christian missionaries were, but I would also not want to raise children that I thought were an abomination in the eyes of God, as the Ibo people thought about twins. Tough situation. As a Christian myself, I also find it embarassing to read about other Christians who found it acceptable to use violence or fear to coerce the natives into converting. Even though they were fictional in this case, I know that real examples of these types of individuals existed. Disappointing.
  
What was the last book you read about another culture? What did you learn from it?


 Movie image here. Yam image here.

Distractions

I'm losing steam.

The first hints of spring are in the air (and this is Texas, so I really have to pay attention and enjoy it for the five minute it lasts here), and I'm finding that I just don't have the motivation to read. I especially don't have the motivation to read The Satanic Verses.

Everything I'm about to share could possibly reveal me as a superstitious and mildly crazy person, but here goes. Even though I know it's not really about Satan, I don't like reading a book with the word "Satan" in the title. I don't really want to be seen reading it in a public place. I left it at home on purpose during my trip to San Fran because I felt weird about carrying it on a plane (I am far enough to know it starts with a plane exploding in the air). And even though I know most of the books on my list have been offensive to one group or another at some point in time...this book earned Salman Rushdie death threats from an organized government in recent history. Eeeeek.

I'm not Muslim, and quite frankly I don't even understand half the cultural and religious references I've read so far in the first hundred pages, but I just feel some bad ju-ju about a novel that has been so upsetting to people of that faith. So instead I've been...

Planting flowers.

Painting doors.

Snuggling with my cat.

Learning to grill lobster tails and bake cheese bicuits with the Hubs.

Am I being too superstitious about The Satanic Verses? Or even better...how ready are you for spring?

Rules, Regulations, and Other Fine Print Details

In my inaugural post, perhaps it's best to outline the "special exceptions" my friends and I agreed to at the outset of this little project.

1. Books read previously do not need to be re-read.
2. If you read the first 100 pages of a book and find it insufferable, it may be skipped.
3. Bonus points for attempting anything James Joyce.
4. Complete understanding for skipping anything James Joyce (Seriously, the only part of Ulysses that I understood was the protagonist taking a poo).



One crazy dude - check out that eye patch!

As of today, I have just completed Book #48: Lady Chatterley's Lover.  And boy, was it a real doozie and deserves a subsequent post of its own! I hope to finish up #49 A Clockwork Orange by the New Year, which will put me at a fresh start with #51 in January (#50 The Awakening is a skip book read in high school - shout outs to my high school classmates and our terrible radio play adaptation!).

Let the blogging begin!