Anthem by Ayn Rand

6/10

I finished this book about two months ago. It was a super quick read, only like 105 pages. However, the version I read had an additional 1st edition version of the book with Rand's own handwritten edits in tact. So I of course read that as well. Which was neat because (a) I had a reason to re-read the story (I don't re-read stories too often, even ones that I really like) and it was cool to read it that second time knowing what was actually happening at the beginning; (b) it was cool to see how she edited her work and took out redundant/unnecessary lines/paragraphs. I had planned on reading this book for some time but always opted to read something else because I was aware of the edited version of the same story and didn't want to commit to reading the story twice. But I finally bit the bullet (as evidenced by this post) and it worked out swell and dandy.

The book was cool. I didn't fall in love with it, but it was interesting to read some of Rand's stuff/philosophy (this is my first Ayn Rand book). This dude lives in this society that has pretty much dumbed itself down in the name of unity and helping each other out for the common good. This dude is sort of a rebel and tries to learn stuff on his own (this is forbidden) and comes to the discovery that the individual is capable of great things and a bunch of stuff about how important the self is.

I recommend this book because (1) It is good to read at least one of Rand's books; (2) this is her shortest book and a good choice if you don't want to commit to her other massively large books and it gives a taste for her philosophy that she covers in her other books (so I've heard, remember: I haven't read her other books); and (3) it wasn't half bad and is certainly different/unique.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

10/10

I finished this book a little over a week ago. It had been on my to-read list for years. Years. It was a dandy. A royal dandy.

Let us make this one quick (Spoilers abound). Tess is raped by this Alec fellow, has a baby that dies, goes to work at this farm as a milkmaid, meets Angel, falls in love but resists his requests for marriage due to her past, finally concedes, gets married, tells him of her impure past on their wedding night, he freaks, abandons her for over a year, she suffers tremendously, eventually submits to Alec the rapist's badgering due to a lack of any other viable options, Angel finally comes back and realizes how poorly he treated Tess, finds her, she refuses to go with him, she then goes and murders Alec by stabbing him in the heart, runs back to Angel and tells him that she can now be his now that Alec is no longer living, they go on the lam for like a week until she is finally apprehended and put to death for her crime.

The book was awesome. This was my first ever Thomas Hardy book and I am now a fully converted Hardy Boy, as it were. His writing was magnificent and captivating and heartbreaking. The book was written in the late 1800's and went against the then societal views of sexual misconduct in females and the double standard that is involved. A woman who is raped (against her will) is considered impure and becomes an outcast. Some sad stuff. In the end, old Tessie was broken and had lost all sense of what was right and what was wrong and what would please her Angel. I like the full title to the book, which is "Tess of the D'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented." I recommend this book, but seeing as I gave everything away, I probably ruined all the fun for the rest.

I leave you with the final paragraph written by Thomas Hardy in his Explanatory Note to the book: "I will just add that the story is sent out in all sincerity of purpose, as an attempt to give artistic form to a true sequence of things; and in respect of the book's opinions I would ask any too genteel reader who cannot endure to have said what everybody nowadays thinks and feels, to remember a well-worn sentence of St. Jerome's. 'If an offence come out of the truth, better is it that the offence come than that the truth be concealed.'"

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales

7/10

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago at long last. I read several of the stories back in 2009. Finished the rest of the stories and most of the critical essays in 2010. I seriously only had like 40 pages left because I got so burned out on the essays. The essays are so smartsy-fartsy and just very boring to read, for me.

But the Tales, for the most part, are enjoyable and well done (obviously, since it's Hawthorne we're talking about here). I will now commence with listing some of my fav's:

-Roger Malvin's Burial: Two guys are struggling through a forest after having survived a bloody battle with some Indians, but the men are wounded. Roger Malvin can go no further and convinces Reuben to go on and not bury him so that Reuben can make it back alive (if he would have stayed and buried him then he would not have had the strength to make it the rest of the way home). But Reuben commits to return and bury him once he regains enough strength. He goes home, marries Malvin's daughter, life goes on and he just never gets around to it. He feels extreme guilt and never tells anybody and people consider him a hero, making it all the worse, guilt-wise, for Reuben. Later, Reuben and his wife and son go to find a new place to live and journey through the forest. Reuben and his son are hunting for food, Reuben hears a noise, turns and fires and shoots and kills his own son. He then realizes that it is the very place where he left Roger Malvin many years ago. Epic.

-Wakefield: Just a cool little story about this guy who one morning walks out of the house and leaves his wife behind and lives in a house across the street, unbeknownst to his wife, for 20 years. He doesn't really have a reason why either. Pretty interesting.

-The Minister's Black Veil: A minister randomly starts wearing a black veil over his face and doesn't say why. People react differently to this but mostly everyone judges him negatively for it. Although he does gain a following from those who have lived sinful lives and feel like this minister knows them and how to help them. He keeps wearing it all the way until he dies. It is a cool story. I actually read this one out loud to Matt as we drove to Zion's to go canyoneering. I also wrote a paper on this story in college and got an "A" on the paper. Boo-yah!

-The Birthmark: This guy is married to this beautiful woman who is considered perfectly flawless except for this little birthmark that she has on her face. Her husband becomes obsessed with the birthmark and focuses on it so much and determines to figure out a way to get rid of it. He works endlessly in his lab and finally comes up with this medicine that he believes will get rid of the birthmark. His poor wife just wants him to accept her and feels like she has to drink the medicine that he gives her. She drinks it and dies. The dude should have appreciated what he had, duh.

I am a Hawthorne fan. He has a unique writing style that, I think, can turn some people off. But you just got to stick with it and he writes some cool stories with some cool underlying themes.

A quote from 'The Birthmark':

"Yet, had Aylmer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present."