Book Reads This Past Week

I haven't updated my reviews, and the read books keep piling up, so I'm going to do a review blast to get caught up.

These were the books I've read since my last update:

• The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy
  
  This book by Tolstoy was first published in 1886. It was an interesting read, and it was more like a modern book about life and death than any other novel I've read. Ivan dies. The book then does a flash back and Ivan talks about his life where he did everything right for all the right reasons, and at the end when he's about to die, he realizes he made a mistake living this way:
  
  “What if my whole life has been wrong?”
  "In them he saw himself – all that for which he had lived – and saw clearly that it was not real at all, but a terrible and huge deception which had hidden both life and death."
  
  "And he had to live thus all alone on the brink of an abyss, with no one who understood or pitied him"
  This book makes me feel grateful for taking the time to read these classics. 

• The Great Gatsby
  
  This was one of the dumbest books I've read in awhile. I can't believe the culture chooses this book for students to read. It's not very deep, the characters are lusting are shallow and daft. It's almost like it's a book for those that don't like to read books. It's about big parties, college prestige, name dropping, fancy shirts and large houses.
  
  Quotes:
  
  "She vanished into her rich house, inter her rich, full life..."
  
  "Daisy gleaning like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor."

• Clockwork Orange
  
  This book was a bit difficult to get through with the slang:
  
  So I swished with the britva at his left noga in its very tight tight and I slashed two inches of cloth and drew malenky drop of krovvy to make Dim real bezoomny.
  
  But it was an interesting book about modernism. A young man, about the age of 15, terrorizes the people in his town, rapes and beats old people, and eventually kills an old lady. Alex, the hoodlum, then gets sent into prison where he murders another inmate. Alex is then volunteered to take a new form of brainwashing that makes his body ill every time he thinks of doing violence, which is quite often. This leads him to be set free. Overall, the book is a outline of the formation of a totalitarian society, where the violent youth are allowed to roam free so the government can then come down and restrict the freedoms of the people in the name of clearing the streets. It's an excellent book on modernism and coupled with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it is a great combination of where we are as a society.
  
  "Does god want goodness or the choice of goodness."

• Pastures of Heaven
  
  A great series of shorts stories about the people that live in the valley of the Pastures of Heaven. This book wasn't as rich as his Cannery Row or Tortilla Flats, but it still was a great read. These were some of my favorite quotes:
  
  Quotes:
  
  "When they saw it was a beautiful baby, they did not know what to say. Those feminine exclamations of delight designed to reassure young mothers that the horrible reptilian creatures in their arms are human and will not grow up to be monstrosities, lost their meaning."
  
  "Pretty babies, Katherine said to herself, usually turn out ugly men and women."
  
  "They have seem every uncovered bit of you, have tabulated and memorized the clothes you are wearing, have noticed the color of your eyes and the shape of your nose, and, finally, Have reduced your figure and personality to three or four adjectives, and all the time you thought they were oblivious to your presence."

• Cannery Row
  
  Another great Steinbeck read. This one, to me, was about Doc and his strength of character at brining together a community, and just being a sane, reasonable man. It has the elements of the bums life, which Steinbeck does a much better job in Tortilla Flats, so the bums are just a side-show to the character of Doc.
  
  Quotes:
  
  "Mack was the Elder, leader, mentor, and to a small extent the exploiter of a little group of men who had in common no families, no money, and no ambitions beyond food, Drink, and contentment."
  
  "What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with the gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals?"
  
  "Mac and the boys avoid the trap, walk around the poison, step over the noose while a generations of trapped, poisoned, and trussed-up men scream at them and call them no-goods, come-to-bad-ends, blots on the town, thieves, rascals, bums."
  
  "Hazel grew up – did four years and grammar school, four years and Reform school, and didn't learn anything in either place."
  
  "Innocent of viciousness"
  
  "His name was Francis Almones and he had a sad life, for he had always made just a fraction less than he needed to live."
  
  "Doc still loved true things but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress."
  
  "They did not measure their joy in goods sold, their egos in bank balances, nor their loves in what they cost."
  
  "In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean."
  
  "They can do what they want."
  
  "They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else."
  
  "They could get it, doc said, they could ruin their lives and get money. They just know the nature of things too well to be caught in that wanting."
  
  "It is always seems strange to me said doc, the things we adore in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."
  
  "Oh, it isn't a matter of hunger. It's something quite different. The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous - but not quite."

• Tortilla Flats by Steinbeck
  This has been one of my favorite Steinbeck books so far. No one can make the bum's life sing like Steinbeck. He basically makes saints out of the bums, and does so with such an eloquent and rich pen that you can't help but agree with him. A veteren named Danny inherits some property from his grandfather. Danny is a bum and prefers the bum life, so he is a little hesitant to take the two houses that were left to him. But he does. And he invites his friends over to stay with him, and they go on many bum adventures. The last of the book ends with a wild party where Danny gets drunk and falls of a cliff. One of my favorite books by Steinbeck.
  
  Some quotes:
  
  
  "When you have 400 pounds of beans in the house, you need have no fear of starvation. Other things delicacies such as sugar, tomatoes, peppers, coffee, fish, or meat, become sometimes miraculously, through the intercession of the Virgin, sometimes through injury or cleverness; but your beans are there, and you are safe. Been are a roof over your stomach. Beans are warm cloak against economic cold."
  
  
  "The friends slept on the floor, and their bedding was unusual. Pablo had three sheepskins stitched together. Jesus Mary had retired by putting his arms through the sleeves of one old overcoat and his legs through the sleeves of another. Pilon wrapped himself in the big strip of carpet. Most of the time big Joe simply curled up like a dog and slept in his cloths."
  
  
  "Thus do the gods speak with tiny causes."

• Treasure Island
  
  The story about a youth named Jim whose father dies in the first part of the book, and then goes on a rather large adventure with Long John Silver, a captain of the Jolly Roger, to find some buried treasure. This book was pretty incredible. An enjoyable ride in the life of a pirate. It wasn't not very deep, but the story was rich.
  
  "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—              Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest—              Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
  "I never in my life saw men so careless of the morrow; hand to mouth is the only word that can describe their way of doing"
  "English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what looked like wisps of string or bits of spider's web, round pieces and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear them round your neck—nearly every variety of money in the world must, I think, have found a place in that collection; and for number, I am sure they were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my fingers with sorting them out."
  "As for Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he spent or lost in three weeks, or to be more exact, in nineteen days, for he was back begging on the twentieth."
  
  

• Old Yeller
  
  I first watched this show as a kid. What a messed up movie to show a youth. Whenever you have to kill your own dog, that may be a lesson that doesn't need teaching. But in the end, it was a decent read on the pioneer life in early America.
  
  "She could feed the chickens compact and wood, cook cornbread, wash dishes, wash little Arliss, and sometimes even change the Prickleypear poultice on Monday."
  
• Candide
  
  I love Voltaire's writing. It's light and fun, but also deep and meaningful. Candide makes the Grapes of Wrath look like a trip to Disneyland. Candide is a young man that goes on a series of horrible adventures. The book is a question regarding the meaning of life, whether this life is the best of all possible worlds, or something else. Voltaire is on the side of something else.
  
  "What, then, must we do?" said Pangloss. "Hold your tongue," answered the Dervish. "I was in hopes," said Pangloss, "that I should reason with you a little about causes and effects, about the best of possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul, and the pre-established harmony."
  
  Life is horrible. Voltaire said the solution, or at least the way to get through life, was to cultivate your own garden, basically tend to your own life, be productive in your own garden, and enjoy the fruit of your own labor.
  
  "with several sorts of sherbet, which they made themselves, with Kaimak enriched with the candied-peel of citrons, with oranges, lemons, pine-apples, pistachio-nuts, and Mocha coffee unadulterated with the bad coffee of Batavia or the American islands. After which the two daughters of the honest Mussulman perfumed the strangers' beards. "You must have a vast and magnificent estate," said Candide to the Turk. "I have only twenty acres," replied the old man; "I and my children cultivate them; our labour preserves us from three great evils—weariness, vice, and want."
  
  "I content myself with sending there for sale the fruits of the garden which I cultivate."

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Reading this short book has been on my list of books to read since the 12th grade. It's taken me this long to finally finish it! But I'm so glad I did.

Franklin was an amazing man. He was born in 1706 and died in 1790. I would say he was closer to the renaissance than to modernism. He was born over 300 years ago! When he was 18, there were about 15,000 people in all of Boston. That's a very small population. The total population of all the colonies in 1725 was nearly 500,000 people. That's all! This was a relatively tiny place, compared to modern times. A person like Franklin must have made a huge splash.

What I found most interesting from reading his autobiography was his social entrepreneurism and his ability to create good will. His political acumen was astounding, and he made friends wherever he went. He could see the bigger picture that making enemies by confounding people was perhaps pleasurable, but it made too many enemies. So he didn't seek for being right, but for consensus. He was a builder of society.

Franklin was also a believer in God. He was a very practical man that wasn't interested in belonging to a sect because it was the right one. He would attend sermons where friends of his were preaching, but he would quit attending after awhile because the sermons were not about making people a good people, but about being right in abstract doctrines.

He was very interested in doing good. He outlined a chart where he could live by the 13 virtues and keep track of which ones he had not been living, and then he would try to ameliorate his life by working harder the next day with that virtue.

Here is his list of virtues:

1. Temperance - eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence - speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order - let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution - resolved to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality - make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; I. E., Waste nothing.
6. Industry - lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice - wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation - avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness - tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
11. Tranquility - be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity - rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. Humility - imitate Jesus and Socrates

Here's two quotes that really stood out to me about his beliefs:

"And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I owe the  mentioned happiness of my past life to His kind providence, which led me to the means I used and gave them success."

"I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter."

Franklin was a great example. He's a worthy example. He is someone that, I think, everyone could live up to. It's hard to have Jesus as your life example, because not many people can sell everything they have and work with the poor, like he did. Many of us have families. Franklin offers an alternative way of living life that is industrious and still blesses the lives of many people, including mine, over 200 years after his death.

Franklin is a north star whereby one can find a direction to right their own ship on the sea of life.

It's going to be my goal to have my children read this, perhaps often, to find out how having a good character can make a difference in your life. It also demonstrates what one person can do in helping change society for the better. He lived a great life, and he showed many how to follow in his foot steps. It's a worthy goal.

Here's a short list of some of his accomplishments.

- worked as an apprentice to his father making candles at 12 
- left his family on his own at 17 to Pennsylvania 
- lived in England by himself for 18 months when he was 18 
- started a public library in Pennsylvania 
- started a newspaper and printing company 
- created the first fire station
- started the first fortified defenses in Philadelphia
- started the first academy 
- paved the roads in Pennsylvania 
- honorary mater in arts from Yale college for "improvements and discoveries and electric branch of natural philosophy."
- helped create the first union of the colonies
- he taught himself French, Italian, Spanish and Latin
- much more! 

Here's a list of his writings that I think are interesting:  All of his writings can be found here.

1. His own autobiography
2. Poor Farmer's Almanac.
(I'll update this as I read more from his writings)

Some of Franklin's proverbs:

"It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright"

Almost done with st. Augustine.

I'm on page 214 of St. Augustine's Confessions. If the internet existed in 390   A. D., I think Augustine would be writings his confessions on his blog. More review to come as soon as I finish the book, which is about 300 pages.