Melikian earned a Master’s in International Relations from American University, Washington, D.C. He also studied mathematics at Harvard and elsewhere. However, he eventually abandoned both politics and mathematics in favor of literature and dedicated his life to writing. Melikian lives in Los Angeles.

Reviewed by: Steve Capell

 There are most likely more than a few reasons that this novel is considered a banned book. Faulkner’s novel centers on race, violence, and sex and if those three things were not enough to get this novel in hall of fame of being banned then you could add Faulkner’s colorful language. Faulkner weaves together three different plots and this summary will in no way do justice to the rich writing that Faulkner exhibits through out this amazing novel that was published in 1932.

The main protagonists are Joe Christmas, Gail Hightower, Lena Grove and Byron Bunch. Joe Christmas is the main character that the plot revolves around. Lena opens the novel searching for the father of her child. She finds Byron Bunch who very much wants to marry Lena, but she is only concerned with finding her baby’s father. Byron helps to tell the reader another story where a girl’s relationship with a circus man gets her in trouble, and produces a son named Joe Christmas. Joe Christmas is abandoned on the steps of an orphanage as a child. Joe’s life at the orphanage is filled with chaos and when he is finally adopted by Mr. McEachern, and his wife his life is far from being much better. His new father beats him frequently. Joe grows up and eventually meets Bobbie, a prostitute who works as a waitress in the nearby town. When Mr. McEachern catches his son at a dance with Bobbie, they get into a fight, and Joe kills his father by smashing a chair over his head. Joe now finds that he has been abandoned by Bobbie and he ends up staying in a cabin owned by Joanna Burden.  Joanna and Joe fall in love, but there relationship is very dysfunctional.  Faulkner brings into the story Reverend Gail Hightower. Gail Hightower is a character that has been cast out from his society. Hightower has some quirky ideas and although he is a reverend his ability to bring peace into all the chaos that surrounds Joe Christmas and Byron Bunch is far from his capability. The climax of this novel left me absolutely stunned.

My Thoughts.

Faulkner is one of those authors where you absolutely love him or hate him. There’s no middle ground. I first read this amazing novel in college and with term papers, quizzes, and tests eating up every living moment of every day I found myself pressed to really set down and read this novel and allow the literature to sink into my soul, take root and survive. This time around I allowed the novel to completely engulf me and at times I found myself reading different chapters more than once. Faulkner descriptive language allows the reader to feel, smell, touch, and vision right from your favorite reading chair. I can only say that I’m glad I took the time to give this amazing novel one more read.

When Sheila with Book Journey posted that she would be sponsoring a banned book week contest on her web site I was in the middle of reading Light in August by Faulkner. I immediately emailed her and I’m so happy that she allowed me to be part of her contest. Each day of this week you will need to go to Book Journey web site to get the next blog so that you can collect all the clues. Below is the clue for Monday September 26th. Good luck and may you find one special banned book this week to read.

In accordance with new FTC guidelines regarding endorsements and testimonials for bloggers I am disclosing the following: I purchased this book and I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Reviewed by: Steve Capell

Vaclav is a five year old boy who has aspirations to become the next Harry Houdini. Vaclav’s mother, Rasia, plans a play day for Vaclav with a five year old girl named Lena. Rasia takes the two of them to Coney Island; however, Vaclav and Lena soon find out that the two of them are not nearly tall enough to ride any of the rides. Vaclav wants Lena to experience something magical to remember this special trip so he secretly purchases tickets to a sideshow. This secret viewing of the verboten sideshow permantly seals a bond between Vaclav and Lena. From that day forward they plan a special day for Vaclav’s debut as the magnificent magician and Lena as the beautiful assistant.

Just before the big debut show, Lena disappears from Vaclav’s life under never discussed circumstances. Vaclav is inconsolably heartbroken. Every night Vaclav says good night to Lena and wonders where his companion might be. Vaclav will not learn the truth of her disappearance until Lena’s 17th birthday.

This book is absolutely loaded with “favorite passages.” I found Vaclav analyzing the rationale for saying good night to Lena as one of my most admired passages:

“The power of saying good night each night to Lena is great. On the first night that Lena was gone, Vaclav said good night to her, put the good night out into the scary, lonely darkness, and meant each word in a very specific way. Good night. Good night. He wanted her to have a good night. Not a scary night. Not a dangerous night. Not a cold or lonely or nightmare-filled night. He filled the words with all his love and care and worry for Lena and launched them out to her, and like homing pigeons, he trusted them to find her, and he felt, that night, that his words would keep Lena safe, that if he thought about her and cared about her and showed this to the universe, then bad things would not happen to her. Vaclav was not asking an omnipotent god to grant him a wish. He was stirring in himself his own very true emotions, his pure feelings, and pushing them, birthing them into the universe, giving flight to a powerful energy that he trusted would do what as a child he was powerless to do.” Page 142

This book is magnificently constructed and constructed magnificently. The third person narration brought to life the two protagonists, Vaclav and Lena. I found their Russian accents drawing me deeper and deeper into breathtakingly richly developed characters of the two Russian immigrant children.  Haley Tanner in her debut novel gives us a window into the poignancy of two incomplete lives and the transcendence that lies beyond our human perception. This book will find your heartstrings — grab them and not let go.

This book goes one step beyond the category of being a good book – this book is truly magnificent. Books that fall into magnificent category deepen my enthusiasm for reading literature – trust me Haley Tanner’s debut novel will undoubtedly be awarded some literary award this year.

(5/5)

Reviewed by: Steve Capell

Pub. Date: June 2006

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

ISBN-13: 9780312939472

ISBN: 0312939477

(4/5)

Reviewed by: Steve Capell

Freedom is a massive 586 novel of middle family life as seen through the ideological portrait of a single family, the Berglunds of St. Paul, Minnesota. Patty Berglund is a former second-team All-American point guard for the University of Minnesota basketball team. She is known to her neighbors as a person that seems to know everything about everything.  Her husband, Walter, is a native of Hibbing and an executive with the Nature Conservancy. I wondered why these two human souls ever married, then I wondered why they stayed married, and finally I held a strong belief that they truly were met for marriage. Franzen entwines life of the Berglunds with all the social problems of society and the politics of the American landscape. I found “Freedom” is full of colorful, carefree, blunt, and flawed characters. Most of the characters are bitter, unhappy people living lives they wish they weren’t!  I found the amount of adult language to be over the top and seemed to dominate this novel from the beginning. I found the novel rather unpleasant, maybe because I found it hard to grasp the characters and their dysfunctional boundary lines that seemed to make them meager words on a page than humans that could subsist in real life. The impact of this book seemed to positively impact many readers; however, I found the overall impact on this reader to lean more negative than positive and for that reason I can only give three stars out of five stars.

In accordance with new FTC guidelines regarding endorsements and testimonials for bloggers I am disclosing the following: I purchased this book and I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

(3/5)