Blogging: Make it a Hobbit

It just occurred to me that it's September already. Soon I'm going to have to shut down this blog because it won't be the summer anymore. Well, okay, probably I won't. I want to have a place where I can keep talking about books so my friends who don't want to hear me rant don't have to -- but in all likelihood, I won't post that much during the year because I read (on average) one book every one-two months during the year. Not counting school literature.

So, okay, what haven't I talked about? For some reason, I look back and realize that I haven't reviewed Flatland. Which is surprising, because it's the best book I've read all summer. So I'll go ahead and mention it while I still can. If you don't know the premise of Flatland, it follows a two-dimensional shape as he describes his two-dimensional world. He later encounters a one-dimensional world, and then is taken to the dizzying realms of Space (occupying three dimensions). It's Jules Vernian in scope, and some of its postulates are accurate enough to be mathematical theorems, though they're qualitative instead of quantitative. For instance, the two-dimensional shape (I think it's a Pentagon) observes that, from space, he can see the insides of his fellow 2D beings. From the plane, he can see the "insides" (or, exteriors) of one-dimensional lines. It's quite thought-provoking... at least, once we get into the second half. The first half is a little boring and certainly overly long, but its made up for by the fact that it sets up a brilliant second half.

There's a couple of others that I've read and (nearly) finished since I last posted. (I've been involved in a production of Children of Eden at my local community center, and been on several trips, so I haven't had time to blog.) A couple of weeks ago, I finished J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. A little background: my mom read it to me when I was a kid, and I recently tried to read The Lord of the Rings in a summer month. Big mistake. I ended up dropping the series midway through the final book. I really do love the series, though, for its eloquence of prose and its pretty excellent (though slow, in LOTR) storytelling. So I vowed to restart the whole Tolkien universe a while back, and when I found a version of The Hobbit that I liked this summer, I bought it and set about reading it.

So, how is it? Agonizingly slow, at points. But bear in mind that this is an epic journey across a huge wilderness of a land. So I'll give Tolkien room for that. In other news, it has top-notch storytelling -- better than I remembered from LOTR. Every chapter feels like a fresh and original episode of the story. My complaints are few: Smaug being killed away from the dwarves is a bit anticlimactic, though it ultimately works (and I remember loving it on the first go-round); and the final battle is written in a very confused manner. I think Tolkien got better at this later, but I'm not sure, and my mom at least was slowed down by the battles in Lord of the Rings.

There's a surprising amount of characterization given to the dwarves, as well as to the lands; Gandalf is an extremely interesting character, even this early on. But back to what I said about originality: I noticed, as I went through the book, that a lot of locales and elements are re-used in Lord of the Rings. For example: the battle with a giant spider; a stint where everyone's lost in Moria; Hobbiton, even. The land only has a hundred years or so to change between books. I don't think it'll actually be too much of a problem, because Tolkien makes an effort to change it.

There's one more book I've been reading for school, as I mentioned, and that's Three Cups of Tea. It details Greg Mortensen and his one-man mission to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I'm about 2/3 of the way through it, and so far it's really good, if a little slow and peppered with grammar errors. The author is pretty good at making the story interesting to read about (of course, this is pretty unique, so it's interesting already). While I can't really keep most of the characters straight, it doesn't matter too much, and the really important ones are emphasized enough that I figure out who they are; anyway, the most interesting thing to read about is Greg Mortensen's efforts. And this is unique-- I really think he might have made a difference in the region. I'm going to research where the Central Asia Institute is right now, but not until I finish the book.

If this is my last summer post -- which it looks like it will be -- then I hope anyone reading has a wonderful school year, and I'll be back periodically to report on my yearly reading. Next year, it starts again! I ended up only reading a few of the books on my list, but the ones I did read were generally pretty good, so I think this summer was a success.