Blog Post 4

The new book I am reading, "Watership Down" by Richard Adams, is probably the best book I have read this year, not including books I've reread. "Watership Down" is the survival story of rabbits as they try to create a new burrow in a large and dangerous world. I find two particular aspects of this book extremely appealing. The first is that several times throughout the book, there are chapters that tell a story within the story, basically one of the rabbits tells a story about El-ahrairah, who is supposedly the first rabbit from long ago, known to be a trickster. These stories somewhat resemble ancient human stories, mostly originated from Native American cultures, I believe. Basically these stories serve the pretense of explaining things such as, why rabbits have long legs, or why so many animals eat rabbits, or why rabbits are known to sneak into farmers crops, and so on. These little chapters, while not moving the plot along, are entertaining and especially fun because El-ahriarah always does some amusing trick on another animal. The second aspects I really enjoy in this book is the fact that it uses rabbits. I have read books with cats, bears, wolves, and many other animals as the main characters, but for some reason it seems strange that rabbits, Nature's all-you-can-eat buffet, the heroes. I think it adds a fascinating twist to the story, as the rabbits are constantly faced with danger, such as the unknown and large expanse of predators, such as owls, hawks, men, dogs, etc..., and live in constant fear. Instead of being brave and heroic, the rabbits are merely trying to survive, and live in fear and run because they cannot fight these threats However, I have a feeling there will be a fight coming up, as the rabbits are currently planning on rescuing some domestic rabbits from a farm, guarded by a bunch of cats, which seems ominous. One other thing I enjoy about this book, which I only just realized, is the interesting character of Hazel, the protagonist of this story. While he is the leader of his group of rabbits, he recognizes the skills of each other member of his group and what they have to offer. Hazel became leader because he acted, his willingness to strive ahead and do what was needed set him apart from all other members of his group including those with something more to offers, such as the powerful Bigwig or future-seeing Fiver. Hazel is a perfect leader not because of his own skills, but his ability to combine the skills of those around him into a single, functional body.

3rd Blog Post

Over the weekend I finish, "A Superior Death", by Nevada Barr, which wasn't much less than a superior novel, and hardly even sub-par. The murder mystery ended with the capture of the killer, who had done it because of the "priceless" wine hidden on a sunken ship in Lake Superior. The women who was missing, and presumed dead, was actually just hiding from her abusive husband. These two mysteries were not exactly exciting to be revealed. My favorite part of this book was just being done with it. By the way, sorry for the spoilers, but you shouldn't read this book anyways, so I just saved you 300 pages of anti-climatic disappointment. I definitely need a break from murder mysteries with lame endings. I've started my new book, "Watership Down", by Richard Adams. You may perhaps recognized this title if you have ever had Mr. Bourjaily, who advertises this book in his classroom and on his arm. This book concerns the quest of a group of young rabbits as they attempt to find a new home after leaving their old warren. 70 pages in and this book is amazing. If you have ever read any of the "Redwall" books by Brian Jacques, probably my favorite author of all time, you will find this book extremely similar and enjoyable. "Watership Down" personifies rabbits while still retaining a sense of animal instinct or behavior in them, Such as in Jack London's "Into the Wild". I personally enjoy books with animals as protagonists more than those concerning the life of humans. As long as I am on the topic of favorite and least favorite types of books, I can say that my favorite books always involve an heir of magical or supernatural force within them. "Life of Pi", "The Underland Chronicles", "Redwall", and "Lord of the Rings", are but a few examples. I have found, with few exceptions, that books without magic, that is, concerning the lives of normal people, always fail to arouse my interest. "A Superior Death" was one of these books. Perhaps the only exceptions I can think of include "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Grapes of Wrath". I cannot remember any other "realistic" books I have found enjoyable or even stimulating. At a closing, I'll say that the next two books I intend to read are "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks, The Bible, and then perhaps Hobbes' "Leviathan".

2nd Blog Post

As of right now, I am on page 180 of "A Superior Death" by Nevada Barr, and I must admit that this book has picked up quite a bit. After 130 more pages of reading, the story has developed quite a bit. At this point, there has been a murder and possibly a second one, as there is currently a woman missing from the national park. The main character, Anna, is investigating the murder as well as the disappearance. So far, I suspect that the man who was killed, a diver name Denny, was killed by his two good friends, Hawk and Holly, because he was killed at the bottom of lake Superior and those two seem to be the only ones experienced enough to dive that deep. As for the missing woman, Donna, she might have been having an affair with Denny, which means that her husband, Scotty, may have killed her. This is where the fun in the book ends. There is so far no evidence for any of these ideas, and this book is more than half way over. The pace of this story is unbearable slow, and often gets sidetracked by meaningless activities by the protagonist, which usually consist of phone calls or drinking heavily. I find Anna an overall boring character with no depth. Nothing more has been revealed about her over the past 1330 pages. She still appears to be nothing more than a noisy park ranger who likes the outdoors. Her frequent back flips from interest to apathy for the murder case is infuriating and makes it difficult to consistently read this book. Having read this far, I need to finish the book in order to know how it ends, plus I'm hoping for some good action fights (though I won't hold my breath), but I have already chosen my new book. Once I get through this snail's pace murder mystery, I want to switch to a completely unrelated book, Hobbes' "Leviathan", which discusses the nature of man as well as political powers. As I had mentioned before, I was also disappointed by the ending to the last novel I read, "Iron Lake", and I feel as if I've been temporarily disillusioned with fiction, especially when the stories have such anti-climactic endings. At this point, I would prefer a predictable, "the bad guy gets killed by the main character in an epic battle between good and evil and everyone lives happily ever after" ending rather than the "untrained office worker fires gun for first time and blows up bad guy's car" ending. After I make my way through this book, I want to shift my reading from fantasy to philosophy, something I find just as intriguing as fiction.