Skip to content

Feb 23

nativeson1
6 Comments

Family Matters In “Native Son”

Moms are the best.

Just think: Without Moms, where would be? Not here likely. Scratch that–we’d definitely not be here. I guess Dads have something to do with that, too, but Moms are so much cooler. At least most of them.

In Native Son, Bigger Thomas’ Mom is an amazing woman who does everything she can for her son–only to see him reduced to a life of laziness, street crime, and eventually murder. His actions wear on her to that point that, by the end of the novel, she almost seems incapable of living because of how he has treated her.

So, one of my many beefs with the character Bigger Thomas is the way his treats his mother. This passage highlight both Bigger’s feelings towards his family and his mother’s feelings towards him.

Read more

Feb 22

screwtape
11 Comments

David Foster Wallace’s 10 Favorite Novels

Yesterday, David Foster Wallace would’ve been 50. He’s one of the authors that I’ve slowly grown in appreciation for since I started this blog. And judging by my tag cloud on the home page, I’ve probably talked about him more than any other author.

When I think of an author like DFW, a guy who wrote the beastly novel that is Infinite Jest, I assume he must have been into heady novels like Ulysses, that his daily reading list probably consisted of Chaucer and Homer, that he would read Faulkner on his lunch break.

But maybe not. Before he died, DFW made a list of his top ten favorite books for a compilation of favorite books of famous writers. I’ve got to say—they aren’t quite what I expected from DFW, but that makes him all the more intriguing.

Here is his top 10:

Read more

Feb 21

blackboy
6 Comments

Bigger Thomas: Growing Up In A White World

You might’ve guessed at some point that I’m a white guy. Maybe not. But, yeah, I’m a white guy.

I was born in 1976, when race relations in the U.S. were somewhat improving—at least in the sense that we were past the days of segregation and overt hostility. So when I read about some of the things African-Americans faced in the early part of the 20th century, it’s a real eye-opener for me.

That’s what I love about literature—it has a way of giving you a sense of time and place through the eyes of a character who is experiencing it all firsthand. Richard Wright’s Native Son does that brilliantly. I believe To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Tell It On Mountain are other great examples of this type of novel.

Read more

Feb 20

Taylor-Swift
11 Comments

Why Libraries Should Love Taylor Swift

As a resident of Nashville, it’s almost a requirement to be at least vaguely familiar country music–at least in the sense that we know names if we don’t know songs.

So when it comes to Taylor Swift, it’s hard to exist, much less live in the same town, without at least knowing a few things about her. The music is poppy and bouncy, and she always seems to be smiling, even when Kanye West is standing right next to her and insulting her in front of a national TV audience.

Read more

Feb 17

bluelikejazz
18 Comments

Hello Nonfiction! How Have You Been?

For the first time in the 18 month history of 101 Books, let’s talk nonfiction. Finding a nonfiction review on this blog is kind of like spotting Paula Deen in a vegan restaurant. But I guess there’s a first time for everything.

It seems like forever ago, but I used to read nonfiction—a lot of it. That, of course, was before this blog started and I realized that I need to stick to fiction if I wanted to keep up a daily blog about fiction. Interesting concept.

Though I’m obviously not up to date on any hot new nonfiction books, here are some of my personal favorites:

Read more

Feb 16

NativeSontext
14 Comments

Why “Native Son” Totally Stresses Me Out

Some characters frustrate me to no end. They seem so likeable. You want to cheer for them. But then they make such stupid, stupid decisions.

Bigger Thomas from Native Son is a perfect example. Without going in-depth into plot, I’ll just say that the first half of this novel, though highly entertaining, has me thoroughly frustrated.

Bigger makes one stupid decision, then complicates things by making another stupid decision to cover up his first stupid decision. He then follows up those decisions by making three or four more stupid decisions. It’s stupid on top of stupid on top of stupid. And that’s a lot of stupid.

But in the middle of all that stupid, Bigger comes to a self-realization:

Read more

Feb 15

james-joyce
19 Comments

Finnegans Wake: A Literary Practical Joke?

Sometimes I think James Joyce is the early 20th Century version of Ashton Kutcher. I think he punked us.

I imagine him sitting at a table in a café and thinking, They love me. Anything I write is gold. So how can I screw with ‘em this time around? Then he wrote Finnegan’s Wake–his last novel.

In my opinion, Finnegan’s Wake is the biggest practical joke in the history of literature. It’s like painting a red line on a blue background, framing it, and hanging it in a gallery at The Louvre. Art patrons enter the gallery and, with furrowed brows, they tilt their heads and stare at the painting for minutes at a time. “Ah yes, indeed. I do see what he is trying to say with this red line.”

When it comes to Finnegan’s Wake, critics can’t even agree on a central cast of characters or a plot. The book is gibberish. Literally.

Don’t believe me? Here’s how it opens. No, really, this is really how it opens:

Read more

Feb 14

scarlett2
16 Comments

Love Stories That Aren’t Really Love Stories

Okay. I’ll give in.

It’s Valentines Day. That means I have to do the obligatory, “Hey! It’s Valentines Day! Write a post about love or hearts or romance or something from Hallmark.” That’s not a requirement? Oh crap.

We’ll I’m already 40 words into this post, so I’ll keep going.

In honor of Valentines Day, I present to you 6 of the greatest love stories that aren’t really love stories in literature. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep my “man card” after this post.

Read more

Feb 13

richard_wright
10 Comments

Richard Wright Loved Haiku. What?

I’m not even sure where to start with this post. Apparently, Richard Wright, one of the preeminent writers of the 20th Century, author of Native Son, was really passionate about haiku.

I’m not a haiku kind of guy. For that matter, I’m not really into poetry that much either. Though I know they are a serious matter for the Japanese, I’ve always thought haiku were the little booger-faced brother of the literary world. So seeing Richard Wright so into them, enough to write an entire book of haiku (Haiku: This Other World), is, well…interesting.

Read more

Feb 10

moon people
17 Comments

Why Self-Publishing Gets A Bad Name

I’m going to be honest with you: Until recently, I thought self-publishing was a last resort for authors who wouldn’t get published otherwise.

I was wrong. In the last year or so, I’ve noticed an increase in self-publishing. And I’ve learned that some authors aren’t self publishing because a big publishing house shot them down—though that might still happen anyway because big houses like to publish crap—but because, with a self-published book, the author retains a lot of control and a lot of the possible revenue, among other valid reasons.

Yet, there are still a lot of self-publishing duds out there. These aren’t just books that didn’t sell well. These are books that are awfully written, unedited, and full of more plot holes than a Dukes of Hazzard episode.

For example, take The Moon People by Dale Courtney, a novel that led Huffington Post to ask the question: Is this the worst novel of all time?

Read more

← Older Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 3,031 other followers