Blayne Sucks

I know this is a rather popular TED Talk that has gotten a lot of links online since John Wooden’s death ten days ago. I am getting it from Michael Graham at Modern Pensées, who got it from The Evangelical Outpost, who probably got it from somewhere else. Regardless, John Wooden was an unbelievable coach, teacher, and Boilermaker. This is a must watch. It’s only about 18 minutes long, so you should be able to fit it in somewhere today.

Jeanette DeMain, over on Salon.com, has taken it upon herself to investigate the Amazon.com reviews of classic works of literature. Unsurprisingly, many of them were given horrible one-star reviews. Her thoughts on her findings:

I really have to wonder about these folks. Are they disgruntled students? Trolls? Malcontents who have nothing better to do? Do they think they are tilting at windmills and bravely swimming against the tide of conformity by warning others not to read texts that are universally acknowledged as classics? (In which case I might recommend that they read Cervantes’ “Don Quixote,” but then I’d be afraid to see their reviews of it.)

The more of these that I read, the more I became desperate to find at least one book that would be impervious to the one-star brigade.

She provides several examples in her article. They are quite entertaining if you enjoy the irony of the barely literate trashing generally well-respected works of literature.

Interestingly, a one-star Amazon.com review plays an important role in Surveillance, which I recently reviewed. Lucy, one of the main characters, uses a one-star Amazon.com review as a critical part of her analysis of Augie’s memoir, which is a central element of the plot. Heck, Amazon.com reviews played a role in my review of Surveillance. Thus, the coincidental timing of DeMain’s article amused me.

Beyond entertainment, I have begun wondering about the role of book reviews. I have written numerous reviews for this blog, but I haven’t really considered what role they play. How do book reviews affect the way we think about books? Or the way we choose what to read? Authors don’t really have any control over these things. I had never heard of Giants in the Earth until Allison chose it as her April Great American Novel. She hadn’t heard of it until it was recommended by her father. As a computer scientist, I know that recommendation systems are active areas of research, and I may survey this a bit more after the Spring semester is over. I’m sure if I had studied literature in college this would have given me a much different perspective. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

So, apparently my last update on the Great American Novel Challenge was a bit prophetic. Things have only become crazier over the last two months, and I have now missed my third month in a row. I am still planning on finishing the challenge, and I’m aiming to finish by July 4th, 2010. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to post a review today, and I likely won’t be able to post one until after my upcoming paper deadline. In lieu of a book review this month, I will leave you with this hilarious, truly American video.

Now that I have time to catch up on some blogging, I wanted to point out this interesting and well written article about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s income tax returns. Fitzgerald’s life was quite different than any modern American, wealthy or poor. He was recognized as an important American author almost immediately, which brought him fame and great wealth. He and his wife became famous for their luxurious lifestyle, but perhaps the reality was somewhat different:

What can be learned from Fitzgerald’s tax returns? To start with, his popular reputation as a careless spendthrift is untrue. Fitzgerald was always trying to follow conservative financial principles.

Another surprise from the article was that most of his income didn’t come from his major novels:

Most of his earnings came from the short stories and, later, the movies. His best novels, The Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender Is the Night (1934), did not produce much income. Royalties from The Great Gatsby totaled only $8,397 during Fitzgerald’s lifetime. Today Gatsby is read in nearly every high school and college and regularly produces $500,000 a year in Scottie’s trust for her children.

The Great Gatsby was one of the first books that came to mind when I started thinking about the Great American Novel Challenge. (You can read my review here.) It’s hard to imagine that Gatsby earned so little money compared to his other work.

Much of his wealth was devoted to caring for his wife, who was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and had large medical bills. For example, she spent 15 months in a sanatorium, which cost a total of about $13,000. When he died, his estate was rather small given how much money he had earned in his lifetime. The article notes that the copyrights to his novels, which now earn several hundred thousand dollars a year, were considered worthless.

I’m not sure I would take financial advice from Fitzgerald. He didn’t seem to have a particularly good grasp of money management. Although he did track his spending rather well, he thought that “money usually turns up somewhere in time of need, and that at the worst you can always borrow.” Clearly, this is not particularly good advice. Also, he seemed to miss some of the now-basic lessons of economics. For example:

Fitzgerald did not agree with Chicago School market theory, which is to say, he did not believe that more sellers means more competition, which means lower prices. Fitzgerald thought that if you had more sellers they simply raised prices to whatever they needed to survive.

The differences between the IRS system of Fitzgerald’s era and the modern era are fascinating. Consider the following (emphasis mine):

Before World War II, the government did not know what anyone made. Only the wealthy and upper-middle class filed returns—less than 10 percent of the population. The system was based on what the IRS called “self-assessment,” which meant that the taxpayer told the government what he or she earned the prior year and then sent a check on March 15.

Clearly, this was a very, very different era. There’s a lot more in the article.

This post is a part of The Great American Novel Challenge. If you’re interested in taking part in the challenge, feel free to jump right in next month.

I’m almost embarrassed to include Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (there is no ‘The’ in the title) in my list simply because doing so is an admission that I hadn’t read it before. Then again, reading great books that we probably should have read by now is partly purpose of the Great American Novel Challenge. Make no mistake about it: Mark Twain‘s Huck Finn is a genuinely great American novel.

I should start this review where Mark Twain started his book. The first page contains this notice:

NOTICE

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

By the Order of the Author,
Per G. G., Chief of Ordinance

In some ways this notice tells you all you need to know about Mark Twain. It’s humorous, yet half-serious. It sets the reader up to find their own inner Huck Finn because if you do any of these things, then you’re breaking the established rules of the book. Of course, if you don’t see a motive, moral, or plot in the book, then why read it at all?

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn picks up where The Adventures of Tom Sawyer left off. It was conceived as a sequel, but it stands alone. Readers don’t have to have read Tom Sawyer prior to reading Huck Finn. In fact, Mark Twain struggled for eight years to write and publish Huck Finn and the books are considerably different from one another. The preface to my edition of the book explains that Huck Finn comes at the midpoint of his career and “stands on a line between the upbeat humor of the early books and the bitterness of the later ones.” I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this statement, but I can say that Huck Finn delicately balances humorous storytelling with serious social commentary.

The book is ostensibly the story of a young boy’s adventures on the Mississippi river narrated after the fact by the boy himself. The story starts with Huck Finn in his hometown being raised by a widow and her sister. They try to civilize him, but Huck Finn doesn’t particularly like the idea of being forced to do things in a ‘civilized’ way. Eventually, Huck’s abusive father manages to bring Huck back to his place where Huck escapes, fakes his own death, and begins life floating down the Mississippi. While on the river, he meets up with Jim, a runaway slave previously owned by the widow and her sister.

The middle of the book is largely episodic. Each episode can be demarcated by the return to the tranquility and safety of floating down the river on a raft. These episodes are mini-commentaries on a particular part of American culture. For example, there’s an episode in which Huck and Jim run into a gang trying to steal from a wrecked riverboat. Another episode involves a family feud similar to the archetypal Hatfield-McCoy feud. Yet another episode details the exploits of two grown con men as they ply their trade. The episodes serve as satires of the many ways that we become slaves to society. We become slaves to the desire to get rich quick. We become slaves to our deep-seated animosities. We become slaves to unthinking religion. Twain is calling for us to think for ourselves, act as individuals, and take action appropriately.

The over-arching plot of the book is the fate of Jim, the runaway slave. Huck Finn’s individualism and friendship for Jim battle with his upbringing and society’s expectations for him as he decides whether or not he will actively help Jim escape to freedom. It’s worth noting how Huck dismisses inaction as complicity in the predictable result and unworthy of himself. This in and of itself is a commentary on the society in which Huck Finn finds himself. Throughout the book Huck views civilization as something akin to a brainwashed malaise that everyone has accepted. Perhaps this is why his relationship with Jim and the actions he takes as a result of it are so important.

The ending of the book and the resolution of the main plot is bittersweet, which seems almost inevitable because of the book’s structure. There’s simply no river left to for Huck to escape to. Huck and Jim are both freer as runaways than they ever were before the story began or after it comes to an end. The strength of the book is the middle rather than the ending, and I won’t comment further on the ending simply to ensure that I won’t ruin it for anyone who hasn’t read the book.

Twain’s home-spun style starting with the NOTICE on the first page and continuing throughout the book was particularly comforting for me because I have so many fond memories of visiting my extended family in North Carolina as a boy. They all spoke with strange accents and expressions that seemed so magical to me having been raised in the midwest. There was comfort, humor, and seriousness in those conversations that seemed unguarded and real. That’s what reading this book felt like to me, but I suspect that everyone will find some “southern comfort” in Twain’s story telling.

Twain is famous for walking that thin line between sly humor and moral outrage even to those who have not read his books. His dry wit and incisively worded commentary remain relevant for any free society because he is constantly reminding us that freedom and individual liberty aren’t achieved so much as they are maintained. If we aren’t vigilant in analyzing for ourselves the outcomes of our action or inaction, then we will become slaves to something. Twain points this out so masterfully and with such unique style in Huck Finn that I am forced to conclude that Huck Finn is the most American of the books I’ve read for this challenge thus far.

Five books down; eight to go!

My books in the challenge thus far are:
July 2009: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
August 2009: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)
September 2009: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929)
October 2009: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (1940)
November 2009: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884)

This post is a part of The Great American Novel Challenge. If you’re interested in taking part in the challenge, feel free to jump right in next month.

My original list of books to read for the Great American Novel Challenge included Ernest Hemmingway‘s The Sun Also Rises, but I chose to read For Whom the Bell Tolls because The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926 and I’ve already read two novels from the 1920s. I’m quite lucky that I made that choice because For Whom the Bell Tolls is a fantastic novel.

In the interests of full disclosure, I must confess that I have not yet completed the novel, but I am very close and sure to finish it soon. I should also note that Allison and I did not collaborate in choosing what to read this month, but we did both read For Whom the Bell Tolls. You can read her review here.

Unfortunately, Allison posted her review before me and has stolen some of my thunder. She expertly points out that the title of the book explains a great deal about the themes in the book. I’ll take a moment to briefly expand on that here. The title comes from a John Donne‘s famous poem:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

It is worth noting that these are just a few lines of the longer, complete poem which you can read here. In particular, I think the ending of the longer version is particularly relevant to the novel:

If by this consideration of another’s danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

As you may surmise from the title and the poem, Hemingway explores two main themes in this book: the interdependence of humanity and death. It is hard to imagine a writer better suited to the this task than Hemingway, a setting better suited to this task than the Spanish Civil War, or a time period better suited for the novel’s release than 1940. For Whom the Bell Tolls is about the Spanish Civil War, which was from 1936 to 1939. The Spanish Civil War, like many civil wars, mercilessly pitted siblings and families against one another. The scars of this are still visible today. It was fought between the Republicans, who favored a republican form of government, and the Nationalists, who favored a fascist dictatorship. As a result, the Spanish Civil War became a proxy war fought as a precursor to World War 2. The Republicans were supported by the International Brigades, which were basically a long list of anti-fascist countries, including the United States. The Nationalists, who were supported by Germany and Italy, won before the novel was published.

The protagonist of the novel is Robert Jordan, an American fighting for the Republicans. He is tasked with the extremely dangerous mission of destroying a bridge in enemy territory just prior to a Republican attack. Robert must enlist the help of several Republican-supporting locals, many of whom have lost loved ones and share their horrifying war experiences with Robert. He cannot complete the task on his own, but some of the locals are unwilling or unable to help him with the mission. Although Robert recognizes the danger of his mission, he still finds himself falling in love with one of the locals, Maria, who had been brutally raped earlier in the war.

The intended audience of this book must have included people who were struggling to understand the political and military happenings in Europe just prior to World War 2. Hemingway, who served as an ambulance driver in World War 1, was known as a part of the “Lost Generation,” a collection of writers disillusioned with “the war to end all wars.” His disillusionment with war is communicated through some truly gruesome scenes in For Whom the Bell Tolls. For example, in chapter 10, common villagers became brutal murderers in a way that eerily foreshadows scenes described in Ordinary Men, which described how ordinary Germans were able to commit atrocities in World War 2.

Hemingway straightforwardly (his simple, direct writing style was a nice change of pace from Faulkner) displays the stark costs of involvement in a “foreign” war. It is easy to lose sight of the fact that American involvement in World War 1 was not guaranteed because the United States previously maintained an isolationist view of foreign wars. But the U.S. did get involved. And it continued to get involved in foreign wars. These wars have defined modern America: World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf war, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The world got a lot smaller in the 20th century. Indeed, it is more clear now than ever that no man is an island, but when is war a justifiable mechanism for preserving mankind? Perhaps we do have some moral responsibility as a nation, but we are still struggling with the cruel costs and exacting execution of “foreign” wars.

Four books (almost) down; nine to go!

My books in the challenge thus far are:
July 2009: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
August 2009: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)
September 2009: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929)
October 2009: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (1940)

This post is a part of The Great American Novel Challenge. If you’re interested in taking part in the challenge, feel free to jump right in next month.

I had an interesting experience while reading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. It was the first novel I’ve read that I found both almost incomprehensible and extremely deep at the same time. I will explain this momentarily, but first let me talk about some background on why I chose this book. First, I would probably be remiss if I were to not read any Faulkner during this challenge. William Faulkner is widely regarded as one of the greatest American authors in history. As I Lay Dying was required reading at my high school, and although I can’t say it was my favorite book, it was interesting enough to warrant further investigation of the author.

Second, I have always believed that the Great American Novel would have a truly great title. I am familiar with the cliche that you can’t judge a book by its cover, and I am sure that this should extend to the title. However, book titles like The Sound and the Fury, A Movable Feast, The Grapes of Wrath, and Gravity’s Rainbow all simply beg to be read. How do you move a meal large enough to qualify as a feast? How wrathful could a bunch of grapes really be?

Third, although I knew very little about this book, I did know that it was a sort of precursor to the existentialism movement. I was taught about this in high school as well, but I never really understood much of it until years later. I think there are some important problems with existentialism, but it does serve to highlight one or two deep truths about the nature of humanity. For example, I believe that if human existence is genuinely alone (i.e. if there is no God), then life ultimately carries a devastating hopelessness and meaninglessness. Life without a reason for existence is bleak, and change seems to consistently and implicitly question human reasoning in this area.

Given that rationale, I picked up the book and started reading. I did no additional research into the plot, purpose, or history of the book, which may have been a bad decision, but at least it left me somewhat unbiased. The Sound and the Fury focuses on the Compton family, a southern clan living in the early 20th century. The first two sections are extremely difficult to read. The first section is written in a stream-of-consciousness style from the perspective of a child with a mental handicap. As you might imagine, this is somewhat jarring if you didn’t know that when you started reading the book. The second section uses the form and structure of the writing to reflect the emotional state of the main character. Again, this was quite confusing. The third section is easier to read, which reflects the mental and emotional state of the main character, but it too ultimately ends up full of ‘sound and fury.’ It is also worth noting that most of the book is not written in chronological order, and much of the language (as with Uncle Tom’s Cabin) is conversational and colloquial English rather than grammatically correct or formal English.

The final section is the easiest to read and the most direct in conveying the purpose of the novel. I began to figure out much of what I failed to understand from the previous sections. Also, I became more aware of the purpose of the book. Quite honestly, this was probably too late in the book for me to get much out of it. I won’t give away then ending of the book, but I will say that after reading the fourth section, figuring out what Faulkner was trying to say, and – in particular – reading the ending of the book, I found myself wishing I had time to start over and try reading it again. There are almost certainly some fundamentally important aspects of the book that I missed completely the first time through and I suspect that I would enjoy re-reading the book to discover them.

Perhaps I am simply not ‘literary’ (the majority of my formal education has been in engineering and science) enough to have picked up the book with little prior knowledge of it and get something valuable from it. However, I believe such an experience in and of itself was valuable. I began to wonder how the context in which we read affects our understanding of what we read. In trying to figure out what it was that I read, I found that The Sound and the Fury was not immediately recognized as an important literary achievement. Was the context of the book’s initial release partly responsible for this? You can perform your own thought experiment on this by thinking about how you select a book to read. In my case, The Sound and the Fury was selected not from any understanding of the plot, purpose, or content of the book, but instead from the rules and context of the Great American Novel Challenge. This is certainly not my usual method of selecting books to read. For other books, I have a process that includes some synthesis of the plot, purpose, author, context, and probably many tacit metrics that I don’t consciously consider.

Several literary critics believe that Faulkner’s greatest achievement is The Sound and the Fury. I am not qualified to judge either of these since I have only read two of his books and since I have not yet read many other ‘great’ American authors. I can say that Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury is more like an artifact to be studied than a novel to be read. Since I have only read it once, you’ll have to take my evaluation with a grain of salt. As such, the only way for me to evaluate The Sound and the Fury is to consider how “American” it is. It is certainly set in a quintessentially American location, the post-civil war south, but I can’t say that it discusses inherently American problems, dreams, or goals. It has probably affected world culture more than American culture, and I find it somewhat difficult to label it as a Great American Novel.

Three books down; ten to go!

My books in the challenge thus far are:
July 2009: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
August 2009: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)
September 2009: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929)

This post is a part of The Great American Novel Challenge. If you’re interested in taking part in the challenge, feel free to jump right in next month.

For the second book in my search for the Great American Novel, I attempted to answer a question that lingered in my head for years: “Why is Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin consistently mentioned in History classes and almost never mentioned in English classes?” The book is clearly an influential novel. It’s likely that every high school history textbook mentions this book, and they probably do so right next to the supposed quip Abraham Lincoln said upon meeting Stowe early in the Civil War: “So this is the little lady who made this big war.” In fact, I was inspired to read it because of the role it played in the first quarter of Team of Rivals, which is a history/biography of Abraham Lincoln’s rivals for the Republican nomination for President in 1860. It could have been the instructors I had or the books I’ve read, but at some point in my public education I began to wonder how this novel became a piece of history rather than a work of literature.

For those who may not be familiar with the book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery book published in 1852, eight years prior to the civil war. It sold incredibly well at the time it was published, and has shaped the course of civil rights in America straight through to the present. The book itself describes virtually every aspect of life as a slave in a strikingly graphic fashion, even to the modern reader. The book tells of slaves escaping, being sold, being cared for, and being beaten as well as masters being cruel, kind, and indifferent. The book follows the life of one slave in particular: Tom, the title character and intended hero of the book. Tom is a Christian slave, and Christianity plays an extremely important role in the novel. For example, Tom consistently expresses compassion rather than hatred for his masters, including the cruel Simon Legree. Although the book is ostensibly about Uncle Tom, many other slaves and masters feature prominently and the book paints a rather comprehensive picture of “life among the lowly” as the subtitle indicates.

The answer to my long-running question about the book was readily apparent, even on the first page. Stowe’s style simply does not meet with the traditional understanding of novels in literature. It is a strange mix of polemic essay and fictional story. For example, she refers to the reader, to herself, and sometimes ambiguously to both using the pronoun ‘we.’ She doesn’t bother to hide her plot, which is presented directly and not particularly complicated. In fact, the plot feels quite straightforward and there are few real surprises. The story reads easily and feels more like someone telling a tale in a Northern formal room of their trip to the South than a traditional novel. In short, the answer to my question is this: “Literature snobs have decided that the book doesn’t deserve to be in their quaint little club.” This is probably true of many genuinely good books that are easy to ready while still conveying a moral tale.

Women’s literature in the nineteenth century has become synonymous with authors like Austen and the Brontë sisters. They wrote about the role of women in society, and they remain undeniably influential. Unfortunately, like the American male stereotype, I find their books to be impenetrable. I consider myself to be a fairly well-educated man, but chances are that I will never actually understand books like Pride and Prejudice. Unlike the other novels by nineteenth century women writers I’ve attempted to read, Uncle Tom’s Cabin comes across clearly and perhaps a bit too directly. If I may be so bold as to quote every English teacher I’ve ever had, “If the reader doesn’t understand what you’re trying to say, then it is your fault and not theirs.” For my money, this makes Stowe the better writer when compared to Austen and the Brontës. At the least, Stowe should be considered the greatest American female author of the nineteenth century. (Quick: Can you name another?)

Many of the faults identified by critics of Uncle Tom’s Cabin may be due to its own popularity. For example, critics say that it created lasting stereotypes of African Americans. These stereotypes appear in the novel, and they certainly made me uncomfortable while reading them, but assigning the blame for the creation or even the popularization of these stereotypes to Harriet Beecher Stowe seems unwarranted. Correlation does not imply causation. Something did popularize these stereotypes, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a very easy target, but I would need more convincing evidence to start assigning blame. Stowe was certainly not the only person writing about slavery at the time.

Another concern with Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the modern use of the name ‘Uncle Tom’ as an insult deriding someone who is at best too willing to go along with an oppressor and at worst complicit in the acts of the oppressor. Tom was intended to be a noble Christian slave, and the compassion Tom shows for his captors flows from this role. Consider this Biblical passage:

Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.

1 Peter 2:18 (ESV)

This could be interpreted as ‘pro-slavery’ or as condoning slavery and some further argue that the Bible as a whole views slavery as acceptable though I’m not sure how anyone could read the Old Testament and miss all the parts about God freeing slaves. I would argue that this passage is rightly interpreted as the correct individual response to slavery as a slave because violence begets violence. Here are a few more modern quotes along similar lines:

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.

Gandhi

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The key to understanding Tom’s actions is to recognize that he is acting as Christian individual should and not as a Christian society as a whole should. Tom recognizes that violence is not the answer. He knows that he is responsible for his actions and not responsible for those of Simon Legree. Further, he recognizes that Simon Legree is responsible for Simon’s actions, and Tom knows the consequences of those actions will be truly severe in God’s eyes. In the final chapter, Stowe addresses the readers directly and describes how she believes a Christian society should respond, but she does not contrast this Tom’s actions. It is perhaps the only thing in the book not presented in the most direct fashion possible. As a result, modern Americans recognize the truth in the words of twentieth century civil rights advocates like Gandhi and Dr. King, and yet they use ‘Uncle Tom’ as a form of derision. I must lay the blame at the foot of the writer.

Although I enjoyed reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, I would not say that it is the Great American Novel if only because it is too laden with the depressing truth of human nature: we are more than capable of great evil. The novel is certainly an American one, if only because of the subject matter and the ensuing controversy surrounding the novel. (Americans are nothing if not fans of controversy.) To me, the Great American Novel might well uncover uncomfortable truths, but it would also inspire us to overcome them. Uncle Tom’s Cabin doesn’t inspire the imagination so much as serve as an in-your-face moral compass.

Two books down; eleven to go!

My books in the challenge thus far are:
July 2009: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
August 2009: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

The notion of the Great American Novel is deeply ingrained in American culture. The term “Great American Novel” simultaneously describes historic novels from American authors that accurately captured a time period of American culture and idealizes the goal of producing or discovering such a work oneself. Authors want to write it. Readers want to discover it. (Copyeditors want to copyedit it.)

Ironically, the books that might be labeled as the Great American Novel are typically books that many Americans have never read. If you consider yourself an avid reader (as I consider myself), and you reflexively felt a little bit of painful truth in that statement, then you may be interested in my proposed solution to this problem called “The Great American Novel Challenge.”

In short, the goal of this challenge is to read and review 13 novels you have previously not read. The novels must qualify as candidates for the title of the Great American Novel. After completing this challenge, you can claim with confidence that you have attempted to read the Great American Novel. There are 13 official rules for anyone wishing to participate in The Great American Novel Challenge:

1. Seek out the 13 novels you consider to be contenders for the title of the Great American Novel. This rule is intended to allow for a broad range of books while also picking a number with some significance for American culture: There were 13 original colonies that eventually became American states.
2. The authors of these books must be American. Because immigration is a huge part of American culture, this can include authors who immigrated to America and were American citizens for much of their lives.
3. Pick at most two books from any decade. Most lists of this sort will have serious clumping in the 1930′s or the 1960′s. This rule is intended to subvert that, at least partially. We’re seeking diversity!
4. Choose only one book per author. This rule is also intended to improve the diversity of the experience because America is a pretty darn diverse place.
5. Select only fictional novels. Do not pick histories, abriged summaries, biographies, poetry, manifestos, etc.
6. Choose only books you have not previously read. You can pick books that you were supposed to have read in high school, but you didn’t actually read or you can’t remember reading. (My own high school English teachers are probably flabbergasted at the thought of me starting a challenge like this.) The point here is to broaden your own experiences. Besides, the Great American Novel is really more of a search or a journey than a book or a thing.
7. Post a review on your blog on the 4th of every month from July 4, 2009 up to and including July 4, 2010. Thus, your first book review would be posted July 4, 2009. It would be followed by your second book review on August 4, 2009, your third book review on September 4, 2009, and so on. It seems like an appropriate timeline for finding the Great American Novel.
8. Do not disclose your list publicly; each book must be a surprise announced no more than one month ahead of time. Plus, this will give you the ability to allow your early selections to influence your later selections. Keep the goal in mind as you progress through the challenge and remember that you’ve only got thirteen selections to make.
9. Your posted review must explain how you feel the novel has contributed to American literature and culture. There are no length or formatting requirements for these reviews. In fact, this is the only real content requirement. I believe the Great American Novel is one that captures and explains a weird little piece of the American experience that all Americans notice, even if it is so tacit that we never speak about it. You may have your own definition or understanding of the Great American Novel, and that’s perfectly fine as long as you explain what it is and how you feel the book you chose fits or doesn’t fit it.
10. You must actually read the novel you choose. This is a pretty basic rule, and it is implied by the other rules. However, sometimes rules like this are stronger when you actually write them out. This is not high school. There is no test; there is no grade. If you choose to accept this challenge, then the only thing you have at stake is pride. Of course, Americans are a proud people from time to time.
11. Post a final review of your thirteen month experience searching for the Great American Novel no earlier than July 5, 2010 and no later than August 4, 2010. As a part of this review, try include a list of the books you wished you could have read during the challenge and why. Talk about what you learned and which books you would re-read. You may also wish to pick a single novel that you thinks is *the* Great American Novel.
12. If you post a book review on your blog on July 4, 2009, then you have formally accepted this challenge. Everyone will know if you don’t live up to it. If you accept this challenge, then your pride is on the line. Can you actually read thirteen candidate Great American Novels in thirteen months?
13. In one of the thirteen months of this challenge, you must break these rules. What can I say? Americans like to break rules. You get to pick which month and which rules, so be creative in how you choose to do it. Don’t forget to explain how you broke the rules and why.

Do not take this challenge lightly. Reading and reviewing 13 books in 13 months is not easy. Only 37% of Americans read more than 10 books per year. It may even be the case that one in four Americans don’t read at all. Do not be discouraged by these numbers! Take the challenge seriously, but set your goals high and see what happens! I believe the challenge will be extremely rewarding even if we all fail halfway through. If you leave a comment on this post or link to it with a trackback or pingback, then I will post a summary of all the participating blogs. Our posts will also encourage one another to keep reading, writing, and posting.

Finally, I would urge those of you wishing to participate in this challenge to spread the word. There’s more than a month before the challenge begins, so you have plenty of time to pick your first book, read it, and post a review on the 4th of July. The more people participating, the more likely we will all be able to complete the challenge.

Ah yes, summer. You know it’s arrived when you’re walking out to get the mail one sunny afternoon and you’re greeted by this:

Summer is here, and it’s time to breed more snakes!

I don’t consider myself all that afraid of snakes, bugs, and rodents. I tend to be rather surprised to see them, but they aren’t exactly terrifying. As a result, I thought I would go back to my apartment and get my camera to take some pictures of it. I also did what any good little caveman would do: I poked it with a stick to see what it would do.

Now, I know that virtually all species of snakes will leave you alone if you leave them alone, but this one didn’t have the coloring of a coral snake and I didn’t see a rattle on the end of its tail. (These two facts alone eliminate most of the dangerous snakes in North America.) So I thought, why not investigate?

Turns out the investigation was pretty boring. It let me poke it. It didn’t really move much. (Many snakes play dead when threatened.) I figured I should leave it be since it probably does more good than harm by eating various critters around my apartment. Besides, it’s a beautiful day outside! I’m sure the snake wants to enjoy the sunshine.

Of course, as soon as I got back inside I started trying to figure out what kind of snake it is. This led me to the North Carolina Online Snake Identification System. I put in everything I knew about it and got back the Eastern Hognose Snake as a result. Unfortunately, the pictures didn’t really match up well. I kept searching. Apparently, it could have also been a Mole Kingsnake, but once again, the pictures were just a little bit off.

Then I found this:

That’s right it’s a Northern Copperhead Snake! I was playing around with one of only six species of venomous snakes in North Carolina.

That probably makes it sound much more horrifying than it should though. Copperheads rarely bite, and they seem to go out of their way to avoid confrontations with humans. They will even “fire a warning shot” by striking at you without biting if you really start to piss them off. They pose more of a threat to pets than to humans, which is good news for me and really bad news for all of my neighbors.

Although I don’t wish this particular snake harm, I did notify my apartment complex about the snake because there are a bunch of dogs in this area that would investigate it with their mouths. I have a feeling this sort of encounter would not end well. I’m not entirely sure what they will do about it. A single 1.5 to 2 foot long copperhead isn’t exactly an infestation.

Besides, sometimes nature just happens. Welcome to summer everyone!