Birds Without Wings. I will start with the short version: Birds Without Wings is about two hundred pages too long and it is not in the same league as [Captain] Corelli’s Mandolin. Had I been reading it rather than listening to it, I would have skimmed entire sections, and I would have probably thrown it across the room by the time I got to the end. (It was not quite bad enough to make me throw my iPod.)

I should say at the outset that while I loved Corelli’s Mandolin, I don’t quite trust de Bernieres. He’s a British guy who writes these charming books about charming villagers in charming places doing charmingly magical or at least wise and knowing things while terrible events happen around them. He always throws in a beautiful girl and a wise old village guy and, apparently, a funny Italian captain in the occupying army, and while atrocities happen, the characters in the book are always too kind-hearted and loving (and did I mention charming?) to participate.

It hadn’t occurred to me when I read it, but in retrospect I think one of the reasons that Corelli’s Mandolin was not unbearable in the way that Birds Without Wings was sort of unbearable is that the character of Mandras complicates things a bit when he stops being charming. (I am leaving that vague to avoid spoiling the story, because it really is a hell of a read and if you didn’t read it back when it was the big buzz book you should get right on that now.) Birds has none of that complexity, although it otherwise has a lot in common with Corelli; Mandras, in fact, appears as a little boy as his mother and father are driven with other Christians out of Anatolia. Antonio Corelli is mentioned once, and Mandras’s mother has a couple of chapters of her own. The setting is different in that Birds takes place before, during, and after World War I in a village in what is now modern Turkey, and Corelli took place during and after World War II on the Greek island of Cephalonia.

Birds is not a complete disaster. I enjoyed the stories about Rustem Bey, a Muslim landowner who seems to own the entire village, and his wife and mistress. I think even those stories were maybe a little bit patronizing, but I liked them okay. I liked Iskander the potter and his son, Karatavuk, and the son’s friend, and Ibrahim the goat herd, and the various wives and the crazy Greek teacher and basically every single character except for stupid Philothei, who just sits around being beautiful until it is time for her to be tragic. And that is kind of the problem, in the end: every single character in the village is likeable and charming and wise and tolerant, even though all the atrocities recounted in the novel are being committed by somebody. When the village boys go off to war they remain mostly unscathed, and even the exception to that rule is one village boy who participates in the scourge of Smyrna but can’t bring himself to rape anybody. The Christians and Muslims all like each other and intermarry, which I can completely buy, except that there is never even a glimmer of interfaith dislike or suspicion, and I cannot buy that we go from that state to mass deportation without a single bad feeling on either side.

The novel is also overly long and occasionally deeply tedious. De Bernieres has included long historical interludes focusing on Kemal Atatürk, and those are helpful if you are ignorant of the history but they go on much too long and take you away from the very charming village characters who are the only reason to stick with this monster of a book. I started feeling a little dumb so I went and read a couple of web pages about the end of the Ottoman Empire, and those apparently told me all I needed to know, because after that the historical sections bored the crap out of me.

I did not hate the book and I would recommend it if you love sweeping historical novels with quirky and charming village characters and you don’t demand moral complexity in your literary characters. De Bernieres does do a very nice job of creating a completely absorbing fictional world, so if you are less cranky than I am you might enjoy this novel a lot. Me, I could not wait for the damn thing to end.

Last Orders. Public service announcement: Audible’s version of this book is missing several chapters at the end. Audible has not responded to my complaint about this issue. Do not purchase this book from Audible. Too bad, because it was not a bad recording at all up to that point.

A very good book. Far more entertaining if you have read As I Lay Dying, since this borrows the basic plot and narrative structure from Faulkner, along with a nod or two to Chaucer. Taking that structure — a group of people take a loved one’s remains to his desired resting place, with each character taking turns telling the story in his or her own voice — and transplanting it to post-war working-class England, Swift manages to retain a whole lot of the humor and pathos of Faulkner’s original without being annoyingly derivative or overtly clever.

I will take one Graham Swift over ten thousand Ian McEwans.

Regeneration. Some day when I am not in school anymore, I am going to take a blood oath to not read any more books or watch any more movies or listen to any goddamned songs about World War I. Because if there is a more depressingly-depicted era in all of human history, I don’t want to know about it.

I really loved this book, both on audio and in print (I went through it once in each edition). I am not sure that I will survive the next two books in the trilogy, though, at least not without powerful antidepressants.

Enduring Love. Not a bad audiobook, and certainly entertaining, but I had the same problems with this one that I have had with every Ian McEwan book I’ve read to date. The first problem is the tone: I always have a hard time determining if the book is meant to convey an arch, ironic tone, or whether it is all deadly serious. The second problem is one of characterization: once upon a time I would have said that McEwan writes unlikeable characters, but I don’t think that is actually the problem. I think the problem is that he writes unlikely characters, characters whose motivations spring from the necessities of plot rather than from any organic development. No one in this book makes any sense except for the crazy stalker, and he only makes sense because his madness is explained. I understand that the fundamental irrationality of love is something that McEwan is exploring here, but that doesn’t change the fact that none of these characters behave like actual people; they behave like characters in a very clever novel.

Perhaps I am missing the brilliance, but I continue to think that McEwan is one of the most overrated authors around.

I, Robot. I made it through the first story — Gloria? I already forgot her name — but I couldn’t go on. I started with an audio version, which was fine, but skipped to paperback to get it over with faster. I still couldn’t do it. He may have been brilliant and visionary and all that crap, but Asimov could not write a sentence that didn’t include a couple of cliches and a whole bunch of extra words. Horrible.

Great Expectations. My second time through this one, but I remain unmoved. I am mostly over my dislike of Dickens, but I am never going to love Great Expections … mostly because I just can’t stand Pip. Maybe I’m not supposed to love Pip, but I’m fairly certain I’m not supposed to want to take him out behind the forge and beat the crap out of him.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Such a compelling story; it’s hard to believe that it took another quarter century to eradicate slavery after this was published. If you are an American and this narrative wasn’t pressed on you in high school, you should take the time to read it. It’s short and told with as much humor as the material will allow (which isn’t much, but there is a sort of biting dry humor here). Biographies of Douglass are available all over the net, and the entire narrative is also available in multiple digital formats.

I was really struck by the unapologetic attack Douglass aims at religion in America: not just the churches that openly condoned slaveholding, but the northern Christian churches that failed to excommunicate slaveholders, or who continued to align themselves with churches in the south. I think most editions of the narrative include the appendix in which Douglass clarifies his condemnation of religion:

What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest, possible difference–so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of “stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.” I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families,– sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers, leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other–devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.

Strong words, and he doesn’t really limit them to churches in the south in spite of his caveat at the beginning:

Dark and terrible as is this picture, I hold it to be strictly true of the overwhelming mass of professed Christians in America. They strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Could any thing be more true of our churches? They would be shocked at the proposition of fellowshipping a sheep-stealer ; and at the same time they hug to their communion a man-stealer, and brand me with being an infidel, if I find fault with them for it. They attend with Pharisaical strictness to the outward forms of religion, and at the same time neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. They are always ready to sacrifice, but seldom to show mercy. They are they who are represented as professing to love God whom they have not seen, whilst they hate their brother whom they have seen. They love the heathen on the other side of the globe. They can pray for him, pay money to have the Bible put into his hand, and missionaries to instruct him; while they despise and totally neglect the heathen at their own doors.

Such is, very briefly, my view of the religion of this land; and to avoid any misunderstanding, growing out of the use of general terms, I mean, by the religion of this land, that which is revealed in the words, deeds, and actions, of those bodies, north and south, calling themselves Christian churches, and yet in union with slaveholders. It is against religion, as presented by these bodies, that I have felt it my duty to testify.

I don’t think we have any current crime on our collective conscience that rivals the crime of slavery in U.S. history, but even if we did, there are very few public figures in America today who would be bold enough to levy such wholesale charges against religion or even religious institutions. We no longer speak freely when it comes to religion in this country.

The Great Gatsby. I must have read this book a dozen times, but listening to the audiobook I still felt like I was picking up details I hadn’t noticed before. But perhaps I need to blame that on Tom Carson; thanks to him Daisy is now a heroin-addicted lesbian, and very, very tragic.

Jane Eyre. I am not a Jane Eyre fan. I read this for the first time last year, a rather embarrassingly delayed reading since I distinctly recall writing at least one paper about the book in college. I didn’t love it enough to finish it in college, and I didn’t love it very much last year, and I don’t love it very much now. The various sections of this book seem to have nothing to do with one another; I can never get a handle on Jane Eyre herself because she seems to morph into a totally different person with each change in circumstances.

But this is a good reading. It’s Juliet Mills, and she’s good enough that I am enjoying the book more this time around than I did last year, although I’d still like to slap pretty much everyone in the book.

Lady Susan. One of the lesser-known Austen works, an epistolary novel, very short, less subtle than her best writing. I enjoyed this a lot and the reading was very good, although I have two complaints about the audio version: one, different readers for each letter-writer is just a little too much for me, and two, long musical interludes between pieces really annoy me in an audiobook. The audio format is not good enough for classical music.

I enjoyed the book a lot, though. I am not sure it’s one of Austen’s better works; I like her best when she is subtle and a little cruel, and here is she not subtle and crueler than usual. It’s still worth checking out if you thought you’d run out of Jane Austen.

Lady Susan. I enjoyed the last one so much that I just feel like hearing another Austen.

Pride and Prejudice. My second reading of this book, although this time I listened to the unabridged version available at Audible; Kate Reading is the narrator. An excellent reading, one of the best audio books I’ve heard. And although I’ve been lukewarm about Austen for years, I think I am now fully reformed. This is the first Austen I read and enjoyed, and this time through I absolutely loved it, so much that I think I have to kick something off my top-ten-novel list.

I hate love stories but Elizabeth and Darcy have to be the best love story ever.

The Empress Orchid. I had to start a new audiobook; I am about halfway through Underworld and I am remembering that I hate Don DeLillo. I will probably finish Underworld in paperback to get it over with.

I don’t have much to say so far about The Empress Orchid except that I wish the narrator would take a Sudafed.