Breakfast of Champions? More like Breakfast of What-fresh-hell.

Hi guys. It's almost ten am. I was not planning to get up this early. Also, my dog has eaten all the christmas stocking stuffers. So I needed some cheering up. This should help.
 So, last week, I was talking to my dad about books I had been reading recently, and how now that I was finished with all of them, I had nothing to read but the trashy teen novel I was given for free after volunteering at Trick or Trolley. He promptly took me to his inner sanctum (i.e the workout room/ library/ art studio/ place where he keeps his nice suits) and loaded me up with four books that he thought I would like. There was The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, which I knew nothing about but was attracted to by the epic red clouds on the cover. There was also The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton, which didn't really look like the devastatingly beautiful and thoughtful fiction I was looking for. The third book was a couple of short stories by J.D Salinger. I actually did start to read that one, but I remembered my previous attempts of reading two books by the same author in succession usually just makes me tire of the author's writing style and compare it to the first book I read. Since nothing can be compared to Catcher in the Rye, I resolved to save the book for a later date. The final book was called Breakfast of Champions. It's written by Kurt Vonnegut, who can be most easily identified by his book Slaughterhouse Five.
  I read a good third of Breakfast of Champions before finally setting it down in temporary defeat. This book is weird. First of all, the narrator of the book refers to the way we know the planet Earth as a thing of the past, so it can only be assumed that this book is being written by someone who lives in the future but is old enough to remember everything from the past, though nobody else he is addressing seems to. He feels the need to explain to whoever his audience is what certain mundane things are, things that we of this time period would be very familiar with. He also draws what these things are. There are these crude little illustrations in the book. One of them is a butt hole. I am extremely perplexed as to why these people that the narrator is addressing wouldn't even be aware of what a butt hole looks like. He drew it like an asterisk. So, weird, yes, but also hilarious. Also, this narrator keeps talking about things like he has made them. I'm beginning to theorize that this book is supposed to have been written by God, or the Creator of the Universe, as characters in the book call him. It's an interesting idea, I must admit, but interesting as it is, it also makes the book really confusing.
  The narrator is not the only weird part of the book. One of the main characters is a writer of science fiction stories named Kilgore Trout. Several times so far, the book has gone into long descriptions of his stories. They are so long, in fact, that they make me forget the actual plot of the book and so I think that this is the plot, and then it goes back into some guy driving to a Holiday Inn and I'm more confused than ever. The stories are, in my opinion, a lot more entertaining than the actual plot of the book. All about aliens who go to see porn that's really just a family eating for hours and hours and then throwing a bunch of leftovers away. It's really, really interesting. The book will probably get more interesting as it progresses, but as of now, it's just confusing.
   I read Breakfast of Champions for a lot of the day yesterday, but at bedtime, I was beginning a chapter and I finally gave up. I'm going to save this book for when I'm in the right frame of mind, because right now it's just like I took a bunch of Nyquil and I'm having fever dreams. I started reading Carrie instead, which I know I like and am never confused by. I'll probably write about it tomorrow. As for now, sleep tight, ya morons.        

Lolita!

I finished Lolita last night. You know that good feeling you get when you finish a book and you close it and you're holding it and feeling the thickness of it and thinking "Yeah, I just absorbed all of that." Imagine that feeling, but then add it to the feeling of being completely emotionally drained. That was how I felt. I know I've said this before, but in case you didn't catch it: You must read this book. It's so good, you guys. I can't even. The whole thing is like one long, beautiful poem. I know that F. Scott Fitzgerald is my lover, and he always will be, of course, but maybe I could have a little something on the side with Vladimir Nabokov. He hasn't got that billion dollar face like Fitzgerald, but wow, the man could write. I would just have him write me things and then read them to me for hours and hours. Hold on. I'm going to go get the book so I can find you some quotes I liked.
  Oh my God, you guys, I couldn't find it for a minute and I almost pooped myself with fear. But it's okay. I found it. Anyways. This is the first line of the book.

   "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta"

 What alliteration. Seriously, for a man whose first language is Russian, he's really mastered the English language. It's fantastic.

  The way he describes Lolita is also truly magnificent. I didn't know there were that many beautiful words in the English language. He paints the most surreal, vivid images. I never want to see the movie that was made based on this book because I feel like they couldn't find a girl beautiful enough to live up to the expectations Nabokov has set for us.

 "I saw again her lovely indrawn abdomen where my southbound mouth had briefly paused; and those puerile hips on which I had kissed the crenulated imprint of her shorts..."

The part about the imprint made by her shorts was what got me. Talk about getting into specifics.

"We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night---every night, every night---the moment I feigned sleep."

That is possibly my favorite part in the whole book. It made me cry for five minutes.
Well, that's enough gushing as I'm sure you can stand for today. I'm at a loss for what book I should read next, so if you've got a suggestion or two, I'd love to see it in the comments.
 

Humbert Humbert needs to go.

Attention: Spoiler alert! If you plan on reading Lolita before your memory has the chance to lose this information, stop reading now!

For all the rest of you, I have changed my opinions drastically since my last blog post regarding Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's work of poetic genius. When we left off, I was sympathetic towards the shy, kindly pedophile, Humbert Humbert. I'm not saying that I completely hate him now, but there was a good long period in the book where I wanted to jump within the pages and punch him repeatedly in the mouth. There was a point in the book where a lot of things became clear to me, and they all came in rapid succession. "Jesus Christ. Lolita is twelve. She's twelve. Humbert took her away from her home. He lied about her mother's death for weeks and weeks. He made her pleasure him and gave her money for it. He used sexual favors like they were her daily chores. And he expects her to be grateful to him. That rotten, sick, twisted butt nugget." Humbert mentions at one point that ever since she left her home with him, she has cried herself to sleep every night, the minute that he pretends to be asleep. And suddenly I wasn't siding with Humbert anymore. He was, in a way, unspeakably cruel and thoughtless towards her. He put her through more stress and trauma and grown-up situations than any pre-pubescent girl should have to go through. He is in many ways as childish as Lolita is. He's shockingly selfish. He married Charlotte to get close to Lolita and never once thought of either of their feelings on the subject, or how he could hurt poor Charlotte. He touched Lolita, in her own home, while her mother was out. And she let him because it was exciting to her, to be touched by a handsome, older man. It made her feel good about herself. Humbert realized that, but he did it anyways. He took advantage of her. He is also jealous and possessive, in a way that is almost fearful. He controls nearly every aspect of Lolita's life. He hardly lets her participate in any socializing or activities after school for fear that she'll meet boys while she's out. He deprived her of everything that a girl should have when she's growing up. If you really think about it, he's only looked out for himself, ever. Sure, he claims that he's hopelessly in love with Lolita, that he would do anything for her, but he's never done anything for her. He buys stuff for her, but that's not enough and it never will be because he made her touch him while other people were around, and he drugged her the first time he tried to make love to her so that she would be asleep, and he lied to her and controlled her and trapped her in his love. It's gotten to a point where it's not devastatingly romantic anymore. It's just devastating. 

Why do my parents even let me read this stuff?

   Hello, my dearest classmates. It's been a while, hasn't it? Too long, really. If you read my last blog you'll know that I was in the process of reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. Regretfully, I have yet to finish it, partly because I became wrapped up in a new book and partly because it was overdue so I had to return it to the library. The book I mentioned before is actually one that I happened to stumble upon while browsing the classics section of Barnes and Noble, looking for some more works by our friend F. Scott. It is Lolita, written by Vladimir Nabokov. I've heard a lot about this book before, as it is a popular choice for English class curriculums and the like, and the subject matter intrigued me. But now that I've gotten deep enough into the book, I am amazed that teachers and parents are allowing children to explore such a shocking and controversial piece so early in their lives. I'm also amazed at Nabokov's wildly captivating writing style. I'm what people call an "emotional reader". During the two and a half hour car ride to my family's cabin this weekend, I began reading Lolita and drove my mother to near insanity with my consistent exclamations of "Oh my god," "Sooooo good...", and "AAAAAHHHHHHHH". If you read this book (and you MUST read this book), you should not do so when you want to relax. You do not relax while reading this book.
    The basic premise is that the protagonist, Humbert Humbert, an introverted, somewhat obsessive man, rents a room in the home of Charlotte Haze and her twelve-year old daughter Lo. He obtains a deep lust and obsession of Lo (who he calls Lolita) and marries her mother in order to get closer to her. Other stuff happens, too, but that would ruin your epic, screamy reading experience. The point I've been trying to get at is that although Humbert's intentions are not necessarily innocent (drugging and fondling his beloved Lolita in her sleep is mentioned several times), he comes across as a sympathetic character. He is lonely and shy and I was rooting for him all the way. More writing later if I'm up for it.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: He makes reading attractive

Tell me he's not the sexiest 20th century writer
you've ever seen. 

   I have to admit it; as far as teenage girls go, I'm pretty stereotypical. I subscribe to Seventeen magazine to keep myself updated on why I am an inadequate female. I listen to the loop of 10 songs that are deemed acceptable, all themed on being up in the club or falling desperately in love at the age of fifteen, which are two things that our generation can relate to. But there is one custom of which I am not a part of: Obsessing over male movie stars, singers and/or fictional vampires. For some reason, I've just never gotten into the whole airbrushed, steroid-using sparkly look. But I do have one very embarrassing fangirl crush: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Let's face it, you guys, he's beautiful. And a genius. After reading The Great Gatsby (which I can say that I appreciated if not actually enjoyed that much) I was interested in exploring more of his thoughtful, lyrical style. I checked out This Side of Paradise from the library and am about halfway through, and it is truly a gem. If you know anything about Fitzgerald, you'll understand the crazy hijinks that go on in this novel when I say it was based on Fitzgerald's own experience in college. Full of romantic trysts, raging parties and a fair amount of poetry, this book is sure to entertain.
   The main character, Amory Blaine, is a model of a young Fitzgerald himself. Charming, attractive, overly-thoughtful and overly-ambitious. He does, of course, have his flaws that give us as the readers that same love-hate feelings towards him as we feel with the characters from Gatsby. He's vain and snobbish and egotistical as anything. But, I don't know...somehow his charming turn of phrase and devastatingly handsome looks make that acceptable. I love the way this book is written, so poetic and lyrical and captivating, even though I have yet to figure out the point. But you'll be the first to know if I ever do.