(Quick reviews on the books we’ve been reading. A “cracked-back” is what happens to the spine of a new book once you’ve thoroughly read it. Please feel free to add your own list of recommendations by leaving behind a comment.)

As I Lay Dying
By William Faulkner

Faulkner is always a challenging read, but worth the effort. “As I Lay Dying” is no exception. In fact, it’s one of his best. The novel is broken into short chapters narrated in the first person by numerous characters – most of them members of the Bundren family. The clan is transporting its dead matriarch, Addie, to her hometown for burial. The family, crowded onto a mule-drawn wagon, experiences several disasters and semi-comic tragedies as they make the arduous sojourn. Faulkner’s stream-of-conscious writing is difficult to wade through at first as the point of view shifts rapidly with each chapter. The characters narrate in the moment and without much historical context. But that’s the brilliance of Faulkner. The story becomes that much richer and complex as nuggets of information reveal themselves. “As I Lay Dying” is a great place for readers who have never read Faulkner to start. The plot is relatively simple (although the characters are complex) and after the first part the style becomes part of the charm of the novel.

Grade: A

“Alex” is a graphic novel about a frustrated animation artist who burns out working at a large Hollywood animation studio. He moves back to the blue-collar industrial city where he grew up to try and regroup, but finds himself on a steep emotional decline. He lives in an attic studio trying desperately to recapture his artistic fastball – but his excessive drinking leads him to destroy whatever he’s worked on in drunken rages. “Alex” is a nightmarish portrait of dreams gone awry and how success can’t always bring happiness. Kalesniko is one of the most underrated artists/writers working in the graphic novel genre. The artwork in “Alex” is stunning – simple line drawings, yet capturing the alienation of Alex and his hometown. The storyline is intense – especially when Alex turns against his only friend, the lonely Jerome (who lives at home with his born-again Christian mother). For those readers who don’t usually read graphic novels, “Alex” is an excellent place to start.

Grade: A-

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
By Daniel C. Dennett

This is one in a long list of books exploring religion and atheism. Dennett, a philosophy professor at Tufts University, has been at the forefront of the atheist movement (and one of the academics responsible for renaming atheists “Brights”). This book asks more questions than it answers. Dennett calls for religion to be studied scientifically to find out how it affects human nature and our policies and governments. He also floats the interesting proposition that most people actually don’t believe in god, but believe in religion. The distinction is profound as Dennett argues that people like the structure and the straight-forward morality that comes with organized religion, but when push comes to shove balk at truly believing in an omnipresent, omnipotent being that controls all of our actions. “Breaking the Spell” is a bit clunky and Dennett cites his own works and other books on the topic often (so if a reader is unfamiliar with them, it’s easy to get lost). It’s a good supplement for those interested in the topic, but not so much for those looking for an introduction to atheism.

Grade: B-

Treasure Island
By Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson deserves more credit as a novelist. He is rarely held up as one of the greatest writers in literature, but he should be. After all, this is the writer who introduced some of the most compelling and popular characters in literature: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Long John Silver. The latter, of course, stalks through the pages of “Treasure Island,” a pirate adventure against which all other pirate stories are measured. Long John Silver is a complicated character – wily old pirate with a missing leg and a secret cunning that allows him to play one side against the other while never truly announcing his own alliances. That because Long John’s only loyalty is too himself and his own survival. He is, by far, the most interesting character in “Treasure Island” and, indeed, the reason for the novel being considered a classic. The plot is straight forward – a young boy named Jim Hawkins discovers a treasure map in the belongings of an old pirate who died at his parent’s inn. Accompanied by his family’s doctor, he heads out with a suspicious crew to hide the treasure. The crew turns out to the crew of the pirate captain who buried the treasure. All sorts of adventures unfold in a delightful and suspenseful way. “Treasure Island” is a book for the ages and for all ages.

Grade: A-

Labels: books, Cracked-Back, Daniel C Dennett, literature, Mark Kalesniko, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Faulkner

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Summary: While talking a stroll about London, Mr. Utterson and his cousin happen upon a dreary section of the city mired in penury. The location was the site of a recent controversy that Mr. Utterson’s cousin relates. An ugly, dwarfish man named Mr. Hyde trampled over and severely injured a young girl. Confronted by a mob lead by the girl’s family, Mr. Hyde makes restitution in the form of a check from Dr. Jekyll – a friend of Mr. Utterson’s. Mr. Utterson, concerned for his friend’s well-being, visits Jekyll, who assures him all is well. Deciding to investigate, Mr. Utterson later meets Mr. Hyde and is struck by the evil he senses in the man. One dark night, Mr. Hyde is witnessed murdering a respected gentleman with his cane. Mr. Utterson protects Jekyll’s association with Hyde, but urges him to cut all ties. Jekyll promises to do so. But Jekyll’s experiments with chemicals have unlocked his evil nature by transforming him into Mr. Hyde. He can no longer control the transformations and Mr. Hyde takes over. In the end, confronted by his friends, Jekyll in the form of Mr. Hyde ends up committing suicide.

Analysis: Poor Robert Louis Stevenson.

He’s often dismissed as a second-rate scribbler of horror stories and adventure tales for children. He suffered greatly under the withering gaze of literary icon Virginia Woolf – who publicly disparaged his works during the height of her fame.

But there’s been a reconsideration of Stevenson as a master of the neo-romanticism movement that sprung up in London during the 1880s. This revisionist take on Stevenson is primarily driven by “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” which is a classic of the style and established Stevenson as a best-selling author in Britain and in the United States after its publication in 1886 (and many believe it was responsible for the wide-spread panic that ensued during the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888).

It’s difficult to read “Jekyll and Hyde” with a clean slate – the characters are so infused into modern society that a reader would have had to have grown up in a vacuum cleaner not to have formed some kind of impression of the characters (see: Legends of Literature Part 2).

But despite the movies, comic books, plays, parodies and TV melodramas (even the children’s show “Arthur” had an episode based on the story), the novella amazingly retains its freshness. Reading “Jekyll and Hyde” is like stepping through a looking glass and onto the gas-lit, cobblestoned byways of Victorian London. You can actually feel the chill of the fog and hear the click of walking sticks on the stones.

Stevenson is a beautiful writer – much to Woolf’s chagrin. He isn’t flowery, however, preferring a concise, direct style and relying on good old fashioned verbs and nouns to tell the story. The results, while too straight-forward for the esoteric Woolf, are vivid portraits and strong characterizations. Take this narrative from Mr. Enfield:

“Street after street, and all the folks asleep – street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church – till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. All at once, I saw two figures: one little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sire the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner: and then cam the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left here screaming on the ground.”

This “little man,” of course, is Mr. Hyde. That may be the biggest surprise in the story: the crafty, evil doppelganger known as Mr. Hyde is a dwarf. A twisted and deformed dwarf, but nothing like the lurching giant that he is often portrayed as in film.

While disguised as a supernatural horror story, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is actually an indictment on Victorian morals. We told from the point of view of his close-friend, Mr. Utterson, that Dr. Jekyll is an intelligent, kind-hearted man who is well-respected as he moves into middle age. But in actuality, Dr. Jekyll is bored, frustrated, and exhausted by his propriety.

And that leads the good doctor to his basement laboratory to experiment with mind-altering chemicals, powders, and potions. There he discovers not only a way to unleash his primal urges, but in way that protects his reputation and identity. He has the perfect alibi because he has become another person – Mr. Hyde.

Stevenson, of course, was prevented from telling his readers in detail what Mr. Hyde did on his midnight excursions to the seedy parts of London – but one imagines lots of alcohol, opium, gambling, and sex with prostitutes. Dr. Jekyll is seduced by this lifestyle, until it overcomes him and his urges become so debased that he turns to brutality and murder.

Labels: literary criticism, literature, Robert Louis Stevenson

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