Kate's Queen City Notes

Blundering through Cincinnati, laughing all the way

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100 Books by 40: A SUITABLE BOY

Wow. I really didn’t enjoy this book. It seems like the BBC editor that put together this list might have added some tokens. Token non-British writes to assuage any guilt, he or she might have felt at their very, very white list of authors.

The book is 1400 pages. Clearly the author’s real passion was discussing post-colonial India. The plot and the characters are all in service to discuss and explore that cultural environment and political challenges.

The lack of character development is enough to turn me off, but the author is also obliviously sexist. The female characters seem to have zero thoughts or conversations about anything outside their husbands, sons, fathers, or future husbands. The men have thoughts and conversations about religion and politics. The author seems completely unaware that he’s created such one dimensional female characters. I realize that this was supposed to be written in the 50’s. I also realize that feminism is a bit behind the curve in Indian culture. But, really?

Sexism is what made me hate this book. Honestly, I skimmed once I discovered how lacking the female character development was.

Here’s an update on my reading list.
Reading now:
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
67. The Magus, John Fowles

Finished reading:

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens *I read this when I was too young to appreciate it; I would like to read it again as an adult. I will do so if I have time.
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding *I’ve read this twice. I will read it again if I have time.
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac *I’ve read this twice. I will read it again if I have time. I have the unabriged unedited version and will probably take on that if time allows.

Pending reading:
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie


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100 Books by 40: ARTEMIS FOWL

I listened to this as an Audio book. It’s about trolls and twelve-year old villains. The book explains that this boy has been left unattended due to his mother’s hysteria over his father going missing. This boy is a genius, and attempts to trick fairies out of their gold.

I’m glad that I listened to this book. As stated in other blogs, I don’t enjoy children’s books for the most part. Half-listening while cursing the rolling-speed-bumps on the highway couldn’t have been more perfect. I get why the boy’s autonomy and hired help would appeal to kids. There’s so much of their lives that they can’t control. It’s probably a shared childhood fantasy to have control. Isn’t that the main reason we long to grow-up?

But as an adult reader, I just find the boy’s behavior so implausible. One would think that I would say the same about the fairies. They are less obnoxious, as they are wholly fictional entities. I know twelve year-old boys. I don’t know any fairies. Fairies have flying suits? Sure. Twelve year-old boys are genius criminal masterminds? Not so much.

Had I found this book as a child, I would probably like it. As an adult, I notice that the best developed characters are the non-human ones. I won’t ever read this again, but I would be happy to suggest it for anyone under the age of fifteen.


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100 Books by 40: THE MAGIC AND FARAWAY TREE

Kids books. I’m not that into them. I don’t have kids, and I am thirty-eight. I’m not going to have kids. I have no reason to be into kids books. The Magic and Faraway Tree is a kids book.

They climb through the trees. They see magical lands. They get into scrapes.

This book told me nothing useful about life. it’s cute, but wholly useless. There’s a lot of things like that. Cute but sans use. Do I suggested it? Not really. Will I read it again? Certainly not.


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100 Books by 40: MORT

I read this book while very sleep deprived. I was on a twenty-two hour train ride. The more fantastic aspects of the plot just rolled over my sleepy brain.

The story takes place on a planet other than Earth. A hapless apprentice is take by death for training. You read that right, Death. It’s what you think. He’s a skeleton and rides a horse.

Have I mentioned that I often dislike science fiction? Yes, well this is obviously science fiction. And I failed to connect with it, as I often do. The characters are never developed enough for me to feel engaged in what happens to them. I was supposed to care about Mort turning into death. I was supposed to care who Mort decided to marry. I know how all of these things ended, but I just didn’t care. The only character that I ended up caring for was death. *****************SPOILER ALERT***************** I love that all death wanted to do was be a short order cook that feeds stray cats. I love that death clearly has a thing for cats and India food. Otherwise, I just didn’t engage with this book. I know I am supposed to be intrigued by the idea of destiny, and if it’s possible to cheat it. I just wasn’t feeling it.

This read was so short. If you like science fiction, read it. If you don’t like science fiction, don’t bother.


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100 Books by 40: Brideshead Revisited

Welcome to my experiment post. I am cranking out a post in twenty minutes. I will read though this next week and evaluate the results of the experiment. I expect lots of grammatical errors and convoluted points. Here we go.

And yet another book about morality and religion, that’s what Brideshead Revisited is. Granted there is some beautiful writing in there. But like Anna Karinina, the author is pontificating about God. The main character describes his relationship to a Catholic family across a couple of decades. There’s lots of suffering. There’s lots of guilt. There’s lots of agonizing about one’s own guilt.

Given that the family is Catholic, I shouldn’t be surprised that guilt takes the staring emotional role. Everyone in the book is miserable. When they are indulging themselves, they are miserable because they feel guilty. When they are making morally sound choices, they are miserable. That makes reading this book miserable.

This book was written in the 40’s. There is one openly gay character, and a homosexual attraction. This is my theory. The author is Catholic and gay. When I realized that I was gay, I felt hopeless. Both of my paths forward looked bleak. Either I say in the closet and sacrifice having the meaningful connection that we all crave, or I come out and disappoint almost everyone I knew. I couldn’t see a bright future in either of those choices. After considering how much I would need to hide my genuine self, I knew I couldn’t stay in the closet. I would rather face judgment than lose my authenticity. Feeling like you have no good option is oppressive. That’s what I was sensing in this book.

A quick internet search confirmed my suspicions. And after wallowing in his self-loathing for the hours it took to complete the book, I was reminded of that place I was in. What a prison. I found the book trough to get through because of my own experiences that I found echoing in those pages. Now then, I am stepping back out of my closet. That place was miserable.


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100 Books by 40: Naughts and Crosses

I like the idea of this book. But wow, it was heavy-handed and overly dramatic. The author describes a dystopian alternate universe. In this place, white people ,naughts, were enslaved by black people, crosses. The books opens when the naughts are beginning the struggle to have equality.

This is a young adult book. The story centers around a young naught and cross who are in love. The story is about how they struggle with their love while occupying such different positions in their society. This is the least interesting part of the book.

The concept of flipping the script on race relations works. The story covers a bit about history, and the fact that it’s only written by the dominant race/culture. She lists naught inventors that were left out of history books, that results in leaving the students with the impression that only crosses are capable of making advances in science. The naughts that she lists are actual black inventors that are skipped over in most history books even today. She addressed the roll of media, and how the content can also further in accurate impressions of naughts as they are only covered when they engage in criminal acts. The TV show COPS anyone?

Did I like this book? Not exactly. I liked the concept. I didn’t like the book. Would I read it again? Certainly not. Should you read it? The concept is pretty great. And the book is an easy short read. Because I like the concept so well, I would suggest picking this book up. Just prepare yourself for out dramatic it is.


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100 Books by 40: Anna Karinina

I don’t know what Tolstoy was getting at. Or, I should say I don’t understand the point he seems to be reinforcing. He meticulously describes the inner live of a woman who falls in love, and leaves her loveless marriage. He also describes an ethical atheist as he embarks on his family life. It seems like Tolstoy is genuinely sympathetic to both of these characters.

****Giant Spoiler Alert*****
Then he proceeds to have her throw herself into an oncoming train, and has the atheist character get religion. If he wanted to pontificate about morality, I think he could have spent far less time telling us about the inner life of Anna Karinina, the unfaithful wife, and Levin, the atheist. I feel vaguely annoyed every time an author is so simplistic in doling out morality. Anna Karinina had to die because she’s an adulterer. Levin had to find God because, well god.

The only thing that doesn’t really fit here is Anna’s husband. He doesn’t come to a particularly great end. He seems really distraught about loosing his wife and falls into chicanery and fanaticism. His career stalls after Anna’s affair becomes public; and he is judged harshly for not calling out Vronsky, Anna’s lover, for a duel.

I liked reading about life in 19th century Russia. I was interested to read that Anna was punished for adultery, and yet she was only honest about what most others were doing in private. It was also interesting that her isolation from society probably exacerbated her paranoia over Vronsky falling out of love with her.

Did I like this book? Not really. Would I read it again? No. Should you read it? I don’t know. It’s awfully long to conclude in such a predicable way. How interested are you in 19th century Russia? Not so much? Don’t pick up this book.


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100 Books by 40: BFG and Swallows and Amazons

It’s been a bit since I last posted about books. I actually finished BFG some weeks ago. It totally slipped my mind to write about it. I have also been spending quality time with Anna Karenina and Brideshead Revisited. I should wrap both of those up in the next week or two. So while I haven’t been writing about reading, I have been doing a considerable amount of reading.

BFG is and acronym for Big Ugly Giant. Said giant steals an orphan from her bed. To the girl’s horror, she learns that there is a land of human eating giants. Luckily, her BFG seems to be a vegetarian. Adventures ensue when they attempt to thwart the human-munching giants.

Roald Dahl seems to be deliberate in the morality he delivers in his books if Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is representative of the rest of his work. It follows that he is making a point about the morality of eating animals. He doesn’t shy  away from dark topics, and the way he glibly describes the different flavor profiles of humans across the globe seems to mirror the way in which we talk about pork, beef, or chicken. Maybe I’m interpreting this too directly. Maybe he’s making a broader statement about consumption, and the willful ignorance that it requires to maintain peace of mind.

In casting the orphan girl and an unattractive giant as the protagonists, he is suggesting that people just outside the norm have inherent value. Toward the end of the book the girl and BFG get treated to a dinner with The Queen, which seems to suggest that the world will value you for what you can deliver to it rather than how you look. I love this as a message, but I don’t think the world is inherently fair. People who deliver valuable work are routinely judged by more superficial measures. Of the lies that I used to believe, my faith in fairness was the most difficult to shed.

Jeez. I didn’t know I had this much to say about this book. I didn’t love it when I was reading it. But I love the way it made me think. It’s a short, easy, thought-provoking read, so I suggest it.

Swallows and Amazons is a precious book. It’s the most romanticized tale of childhood that I have read yet. It’s a pleasant read in that it prompted me to daydream about racing dirt bikes and building tree forts. But it was too precious. A couple bites of cotton candy are nice; a whole bag of cotton candy rots the teeth. Swallows and Amazons is a great thoughtless beach read, but it’s utterly unmemorable.

Now then, back to Anna Karinina, Brideshead Revisited, A Suitable Boy, and Naughts and Crosses.


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100 Book by 40: FAR FROM THE MADDENING CROWD

I noticed some parallels between Far from the Maddening Crowd and The Hunger Games. Katniss Everdeen and Bathsheba Everdene share last names. Katniss is an accomplished female lead; Bathsheba breaks gender stereotypes and runs her own farm. Both Katniss and Bathsheba have multiple love interests, and a significant part of the plots of both books hang on romantic outcomes. This prompted me to investigate if Suzanne Collins has acknowledged these similarities. And as it turns out, Collins states that Far from the Maddening Crowd is one of her favorite books.

There’s one other parallel between the authors that comes from reading two of Hardy’s books. Hardy is cruel to his characters. He breaks them down. He makes them suffer. Collins does the same. I actually feel less critical of the way Collins ended her trilogy with this new perspective.

I could talk about Hardy’s sharp perception. I could talk about his wonderful way of capturing the nature of relationships. But I think I would rather let his speak for himself. I loved this book. If these quotes draw you, or you want to see what shaped Collins’ writing, Hardy is a great read.

The change at the root of this has been the recent supplanting of the class of stationary cottagers, who carried on the local traditions and humours, by a population of more or less migratory labourers, which has led to a break of continuity in local history, more fatal than any other thing to the preservation of legend, folk-lore, close inter-social relations, and eccentric individualities. For these the indispensable conditions of existence are attachment to the soil of one particular spot by generation after generation.

Hardy, Thomas (2012-05-17). Far from the Madding Crowd . . Kindle Edition.

This quote is in reference to Oak’s sheep dog, George and his pup. George’s pup triumphantly took Oak to the cliff from which his entire flock plummeted. The implication is that George’s son did such a great job of driving the sheep, that he drove them to their deaths. I love the pivot that Hardy makes to draw a larger conclusion in that this type of single-mindedness is just as undesirable in people.

George’s son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o’clock that same day— another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise.

Hardy, Thomas (2012-05-17). Far from the Madding Crowd (p. 28). . Kindle Edition.

This is a quote in reference to one of Bathsheba’s more reserved suitors. This man probably would have given everything for her happiness, but she spurns him for a foppish, handsome soldier.

He had no light and careless touches in his constitution, either for good or for evil. Stern in the outlines of action, mild in the details, he was serious throughout all . He saw no absurd sides to the follies of life, and thus, though not quite companionable in the eyes of merry men and scoffers, and those to whom all things show life as a jest, he was not intolerable to the earnest and those acquainted with grief. Being a man who read all the dramas of life seriously, if he failed to please when they were comedies, there was no frivolous treatment to reproach him for when they chanced to end tragically.

Hardy, Thomas (2012-05-17). Far from the Madding Crowd (p. 93). . Kindle Edition.

Truth.

The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a self-indulgence, and no generosity at all.

Hardy, Thomas (2012-05-17). Far from the Madding Crowd (p. 101). . Kindle Edition.

Interesting observation about the differences between men and women and their motivation to marry.

It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession ; with totally differing aims the method is the same on both sides.

Hardy, Thomas (2012-05-17). Far from the Madding Crowd (p. 101). . Kindle Edition.

Here’s an update on my reading list.
Reading now:
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

Finished reading:

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens *I read this when I was too young to appreciate it; I would like to read it again as an adult. I will do so if I have time.
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding *I’ve read this twice. I will read it again if I have time.
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac *I’ve read this twice. I will read it again if I have time. I have the unabriged unedited version and will probably take on that if time allows.

Pending reading:
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie


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100 Books by 40: OF MICE AND MEN

On a night out you might run into someone. Maybe someone who’s had enough beers to talk to strangers. Maybe it’s someone who’s naturally gregarious and regularly chats with randoms at the bar. You might have 2 hours of conversation with that someone. You might like the same music or share some other interest. It’s fun for the evening. But these random encounters are in a separate class from time spent with close friends; they are cherished precisely for their surprise and randomness.

This is my first Steinbeck since The Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men was just as good as I was expecting it to be. I was already familiar with the story, so I absorbed the metaphors and foreshadowing. My only wish once the book was over, was for more time with the characters. They are the randoms at the bar. There’s nothing to be done but savor the short, beautiful moment.

There’s been lots of talk about a Princeton kid who wrote and entry explaining why he won’t apologize for his white privilege. He’s nineteen. I know what I was like at nineteen. One of the hallmarks of that time is my undaunted confidence in my opinions and critical thinking skills. The other was my complete and total lack of understanding of anyone’s experiences outside my own. I grew up so white that I didn’t meet a person of color until college. I didn’t know a single solitary thing about race other than the self-affirming things that most affluent white kids know. I knew that I worked for everything I got. I knew that the world and more specifically our economy was a fair meritocracy, where skin color was irrelevant to someone’s skill set. I knew that my family worked hard and that they only had their work to thank for their achievements.

Did I do some learning in the years from eighteen to twenty-five. The world isn’t fair. People are completely judged on their appearance, especially skin color. Meritocracy while a nice idea is certainly not the measuring stick for adult success. Some of these lessons, I learned apart from racial issues. These are hard truths that only experience can teach.

I understand where Tal is coming from. I would have written something similar at nineteen. After watching only black men get pulled over around our college campus for years, after watching the police shootings in my city only result in black male victims for years, after watching people I care about get treated differently because of their skin color, I can only conclude that there is a structural problem.

I know why Tal’s position is reassuring. White, affluent people don’t want to acknowledge privilege for a number of reasons. First, acknowledging it requires that we seek to rectify it. Second, acknowledging it requires a small dose of humble pie suggesting that not only our talent has brought us to our socio-economic position. And finally and more darkly, white people are desperate to hold on to any advantage they have. Change is scary, and there is a palpable sense of people clinging to the deck chairs of the Titanic that is the culture built to serve the Baby Boomers.

I promise this will get back to Of Mice and Men in just a moment.

While I do believe that luck favors the well-prepared, I also have come to understand wealth and its role in success as a option enabler. Wealth buys you better options, at nearly every juncture of your life. In childhood wealth buys you child care that preps you for school. It can buy you a stay-at-home mom, and perhaps more one-on-one adult interaction. It can buy you more books. It can buy you more experiences. Later it can buy you better schools, where your classmates will all be as well prepared for school as you are. It will buy you a well educated cohort to socialize with through your school years. These better options don’t guarantee your future prosperity, but they send you into adulthood better equipped to prosper.

Wealth buys attractive options. George didn’t have wealth. He didn’t have the option of purchasing a farm, and keeping Lennie away from people who wouldn’t understand his limitations. So when George is confronted with that final, terrible choice, it was his lack of attractive options that drove him there. Do I think George was responsible for what brought him to that river bank with Lennie? Yes. But blaming George provides an emotional escape from what’s truly sad about Of Mice and Men. The real heart-break in the book is how sensible all of George’s actions are.

I loved this book. I loved the characters. I loved the tender interaction between Slim and George.