Slow to post

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. An okay book about time passing in one day and the choices one makes through the years and the implications for the future. It was okay. I am tad bit upset that I left my copy on the plane after finishing in mid-November. Oh well.


Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. A deeply disturbing book, beautifully written. Perhaps an explanation of how some pedophiles are born and how they think. In the end, tragic all around.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I can't say I agree with her philosophy, but the story itself was pretty darn good. A soap opera of sorts, full of lots of interesting and evil characters. And the quintessential hero, who can't be bought, Howard Rourke. There's much to be said for integrity and much to be said for striving to be the best and to view one's work as a vocation. Capitalism is without a doubt the best economic system, but it has its faults as well. Most men don't possess the integrity of a Rourke or the ability to do their best just because. Only a cruel society would leave its poor to the integrity of the rich and powerful. Rand may not have known Bernie Madoff, but there have always been Madoff-like people who are driven by pure greed, and it is often the poor that suffer the fall-out--the collateral damage of what those in power do.
But the story moves and as long as it is, it's a story that held my attention the whole way.

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. At the same time I was listening to The Fountainhead, I was reading Babbitt. Babbitt is the opposite of Rourke, more akin to Peter Keating in TheFountainhead, the kind of character who goes along to get along, always conforming and enjoying success as a result. Babbitt, however, does attempt to step out, but, Baby, it's cold out there, and Babbitt doesn't like living in exile. ULtimately, he rejoins the fold, but he knows that he has lost. There is hope in the end, for the next generation.

Currently listening to: The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson.
Currently reading: A Death in the Family by James Agee.