Innocence clothed in pajamas

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

We all know that children tend to be innocent, naïve, accepting, and simple. The older we get, the more we tend to lose those qualities. On one hand, that’s a good thing; we all want to be experienced, intelligent, and, quite frankly, impressive to those around us. On the other hand, however, there are some real benefits to being innocent, naïve, accepting, and simple. Not understanding and taking things as they are anyway is sometimes the best route. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a tale of a young boy who fits the definition of childlike to a "t", but fitting that definition means accepting both the good and the bad sides of that definition.

Bruno is an 8 year old boy, living in World War II Germany. His father has recently been promoted by “The Fury” (Bruno’s understanding of “Fuhrer”) to be the head of Out-With (Bruno’s understanding of “Auschwitz”). The whole family, which consists of Mother, Father, Bruno, and sister Gretel, must move to Out-With so that Father can be the boss at this out of the way house in the middle of nowhere. Bruno is upset about the move; he has to leave his friends, his grandparents, and his beautiful home. The house at Out-With is cold and boring in comparison, and there are no children around for as far as Bruno can see. He isn’t allowed to go in the back of the house, and he isn’t allowed to play outside the gates. A tutor comes to their home, so Bruno isn’t even allowed to go to school with other children. This new move doesn’t seem like such a good idea to Bruno, and he wishes his father had told The Fury no when The Fury told him to come run Out-With.

One day, Bruno looks out his window and sees a farm. All of the people at the farm are wearing striped pajamas, which Bruno thinks is strange. What kind of farmers wear pajamas? Bruno asks his mother about it, and she becomes worried. She doesn’t want Bruno to think about the farm and tells him to forget about it. But Bruno keeps wondering about the pajama wearing farmers. In fact, one of the men that helps in the house wears these pajamas. One day, as Bruno is swinging on his tire swing, he falls and scrapes his knee. The pajama-wearing man takes him inside and cares for his knee. He admits to Bruno that he was once a doctor, and Bruno wonders what would make a man quit being a doctor in order to take a job peeling potatoes at the Out-With house. This makes Bruno even more curious about the farm.

Bruno finds a way out of the backyard one day when no one is looking, and he goes for a luxurious walk in the woods. Eventually, he finds a fence. Behind this fence is the farm with all those pajama wearing farmers! And sitting next to the fence is a boy about Bruno’s age. They start talking, and Bruno becomes friends with Shmuel, but Shmuel can’t come outside the fence and play. As time wears on, Bruno spends more and more time at the fence with Shmuel. But Bruno doesn’t get it; to him, Shmuel is just a boy in pajamas who lives at the farm.

One day, Shmuel can’t find his father. Bruno offers to help find him, and Shmuel devises a plan to get another pair of pajamas for Bruno to wear. They dig a hole at the edge of the fence and in Bruno goes. He puts on the pajamas, and off with Shmuel he goes. The farm is much different than Bruno was told it was; in fact, it seems pretty awful. He starts to wonder why Shmuel and the other farmers live here. Soon, all the farmers are rounded up, and since Bruno is with the men, he goes with them. They are rushed into a room called the shower. This doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to Bruno; the men here could use a shower. This is the last we hear from Bruno, as we assume the showers weren’t the kind most of us take in the morning.

I’ll admit; this wasn’t the happiest ending I’ve ever experienced. However, the book contained so much emotion and feeling that I found myself in tears as it ended. But I should make another confession: I read the book because I saw the movie first. I have nothing bad to say about either; in fact, I went to my students and immediately recommended both the book and the movie to them the next day. Several of them both read the book and watched the movie, and they all brought back the same report that I gave them: you HAVE to read this/watch this. I’ll admit, it seems a bit hard to believe all this could happen; I mean, aren’t even kids smart enough to get that the farm is a camp and that these people are the awful Jews Bruno has been taught to hate? Then I spent some time with some elementary school students, and realized that that innocence, naivety, willingness to accept, and simplicity is spot on. It takes looking at something as horrific as the Holocaust and World War II through the eyes of a child to realize that there were real people, individuals, who had real lives and incredibly complex feelings.

So… my official review is you have to HAVE TO read it and watch it, but you will be sad and it will make you think. But seriously, you HAVE to read/watch!

Noses up!

Snobs - Julian Fellowes

If you don't recognize the name, you should. Fellowes is the screenwriter for the Academy Award winning film Gosford Park, as well as an actor and director in his own right. Snobs is his first novel, but you'd never know that to read it!

Sticking with what he knows best, Fellowes' novel is a tale of English society and the class system, marriage, scandal, social climbing...with one major caveat: it's set in the 1990s. It's an unusual twist as most of the characters seem to be relics from Edwardian society and the appearance of cell phones and cars seems odd when set beside shooting parties, marriages of convenience, and HRHs, but all this serves to illustrate that the idea of class structure is very much alive and well in contemporary England.

Told from the point of view of a friend of Edith Lavery, the woman around whom the plot of the novel spins, the narrator remains unnamed throughout. He occupies a unique position in society, however, as both a member of the upper gentry or minor nobility (it is never quite clear) and as a working actor. His "in but not of" perspective allows him to narrate the tale of one woman's social climb, with absolutely shrewd insights into the nature of the world Edith is so desperate to enter. Snobs is at its base a critical examination of the mental, emotional, and personal state of the privilege class who have, unlike celebrities, been raised with the idea of their inherent self-worth, and the fundamental differences between them and the people who idealize them.

What made this book such an enjoyable read for me is that aristocrats in literature are often portrayed as heartless, evil, stupid, or completely unaware of their detachment from the life the other 98% of the population read. What sets the characters in Snobs apart is how deeply aware they are of their pretensions, traditions, and perceptions. The truly greatest character is the indomitable Lady Uckfield, Edith's mother-in-law, who has the clearest eyes and best sense of any of her family both as to outsider Edith's motives and struggles in her marriage, and to her own position and what power it gives her. The characters are honest, and if they prove not to be they are at least honest about their dishonesty.

The plot itself is pretty straightforward: girl marries up, discovers that aristocracy does not mean the same thing as celebrity, grows dissatisfied, and is tempted by a devilishly handsome actor. There is the natural ensuing struggle of what is most important: sex or security, privledge or money (they aren't the same thing at all), happiness or fulfillment. What makes the story gripping is the dialog and the candid insights into an archaic, protected, exclusive group of people who simply think differently than any other group.

Authentic, sharp, quietly intense, and merciless. If a canny peek into this world appeals, enjoy!

Thumbs up and out, please!

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is, by no small measure, an odd book. It was actually originally a BBC radio comedy show during the late 70’s. Douglas Adams then took his creation to the next level – he published Hitchhikers as the first book in a 5 volume trilogy (that’s some of Adams’s humor there for you). In 1981, someone tried to make it into a TV series, 1984 brought in a computer game, and in 2005 it became a Hollywood blockbuster. I’ve only read the book, so I can’t tell you about any of the story’s other mediums (though Calliope says the radio show is great and the movie is mediocre), but I can tell you about the book. Ready? Woo hoo!

We begin our book by meeting some interesting characters on planet earth. Arthur Dent is an unsuspecting human whose close friend, Ford Prefect, is actually an alien from another part of the galaxy. Unbeknownst to planet Earth, the galaxy needs more room for inter-space highways, so Earth is going to be demolished. Ford gets Arthur off of Earth just in time for it to be gone forever. Fun beginning, huh? How does Ford get them off? Well, by using his knowledge of the book called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, of course. Every good space traveler has a copy and uses it religiously!

We then meet Zaphod Beeblebrox, the Galactic President. He and his girl, Trillian (who we find out later he took away with him last time he visited Earth) have decided to steal the newest invention by the Galactic scientists, called the Heart of Gold. It is a time-warp speed space craft that can get you anywhere by its use of an improbability drive, which powers the craft by doing and calculating the improbable.

It would be improbable for a ship to pick up random creatures floating in open space, so this is exactly what the ship does. Soon, Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, and Trillian (along with Marvin, the chronically depressed robot) are all on the same ship. Where are they headed? Well, of course, for the improbable! Many moons ago, the planet Magrathea manufactured perfect planets for rich planeteers to buy, and it was by far the richest planet. Zaphod wants to find it, so off they go.

It would be improbable to find it, right? So obviously, they do. Once there, they learn that Earth was actually a giant computer, which was to take 10,000 years to come up with the Question to the Ultimate Answer (the answer is 42, by the way). It was just about to give an answer when BOOM, the galaxy got rid of Earth, and the species which had commissioned the supercomputer/planet were out of luck for an answer. Want to know what those creatures are? Mice, of course. Who else would be the true rulers of Earth?

Throughout this journey, the improbable happens around every twist and turn of the story, making it a laugh out loud comedy in paper form. Nothing is what you expect, nor is it what the characters expect, yet they seem to expect the unexpected and are okay with that. It ends with an invitation to Arthur and Ford to visit the restaurant at the end of the universe (an abrupt ending, which actually fits nicely with the rest of the book), and that just so happens to be the title of the next book in the series.

As previously mentioned in another review, I’m not really one who gets British humor. I’m just too American, I suppose. However, I did find Hitchhikers to be very, very amusing. I read it with Techno, my husband, who up until we met had read a total of probably 6 books in his life. One of my goals in life is to get him to read books and to actually like it (which, by the way, he does now), so I often look for books we can read together. The books I enjoy on my own sometimes are way over his literary level (that’s what marrying an English teacher will do to you), so when I read the back of Hitchhikers, I knew this would be one I could get him to read. And read it he did. In fact, he was more interested in reading it than I was. I thought it was amusing and enjoyable, but he couldn’t get enough. Because Hitchhikers is part of a 5 volume trilogy, the fun doesn’t get to end for him here. He gets to read the next four, and he’s so excited about it. The sci-fi and technology aspect of the novel are right up his alley, and he frequently laughed out loud at the ridiculous things that happened within the book. As for myself, I enjoyed the twists and turns, but I’m not much of a sci-fi gal. I enjoyed the read, but I’ll let Techno read the other four on his own.

Editor's note : Sorry! We have officially sucked this past month! But in our defense, I'm getting married in three weeks and Echo (besides being the world's best bridesmaid) was finishing up the school year; English teachers have it rough. But we're back!

The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation - Paulo Coelho

Coelho writes modern parables in a simple, but profound language that resonates even through the Portuguese to English translation. Neither of his two books that I've read have taken more than a couple of hours to finish, but without fail they have caused me to pause and reflect on the passage of life and human nature.

The Devil and Miss Prym takes place in a remote rural village where nothing ever changes and the only person disgruntled about it is a waitress named Chantal Prym who longs to leave and see the World. But all in all, it's a pleasant place with pleasant people leading a pleasant life, until this idyll is shattered by the arrival of a mysterious stranger who wishes to conduct an experiment on human and divine nature.

Taking Chantal to the woods the stranger shows her where he has buried one gold bar and tells her that there are ten other buried all throughout the forest and explains his twisted plan. Wishing to know if people are inherently good, bad, or a mix of the both he tells Chantal that it is his intention to urge the citizens of the village to commit bad or outright evil deeds, culminating (hopefully) with murder. His explains to Chantal that she can take the one gold brick and run, and prove than men are thieves and cowards, she can tell the village of his proposition that if they kill one member of their community they will receive the ten brick ensuring prosperity for their entire populace, or she can return to the village and say nothing, but that the stranger will tell the people of his plan and they will like choose her to be their victim.

What follows is an interesting examination into human behavior. After struggling with the desire to do the moral thing, the desire to preserve her own safety, the desire to get out of her stagnant life, Chantal tells the villagers her story in order to save her own life. She also tells the stranger that his plan is flawed because only evil can be rewarded in it and "good will earn nothing but praise. You're not trying to find the answer to a question, you're simply trying to confirm something you desperately want to believe: that everyone is evil." Though the stranger is shaken, he continues on his course and watches the drama unfold.

Members of the community each start to question what they are capable of, whether it is best to kill one to save many. Leaders worry about their political future, religious authorities ponder on the nature of such a sacrifice (after all, didn't one like it already take place in Christianity?), individual rivalries and pettiness come to light, humanity is displayed at its brightest and darkest.

Coelho's simple, powerful tale serves to remind us that anyone truly is capable of nearly any deed, fair or foul. Sometimes our morality saves us, sometimes our greed...sometimes they condemn us. Definitely worth the read. If you like it, try another of his justifiably famous works, The Alchemist.