Time Will Darken It by William Maxwell

I'm doing a little bit of backlogging. I've been reading a lot and I want to get my thoughts down. So I'm probably going to do a few blogs a week for a little while now. But I'm not reading that quickly... ;-P

Synopsis: It starts out pretty dry. Set in the early 1900s, the King family is visited by the Potter family. Austin King invites this "family" (not actually related to him, but helped to raise his father) to spend an extended period of time in his home with his wife, Martha, and young daughter, Ab, during the summer. His wife is unhappy with the visitors, and the book opens with the tension between them. The Potters are southerners and bring a new dynamic to the Northern society that they have imposed themselves upon. But the story morphs to be about Norah Potter, the unmarried daughter who falls in love with Austin, and stays behind to be near him when her family returns home. Although she confesses her love to Austin, he tells her she can continue to talk to him and see him, even though he will never be able to reciporcate her feelings. He loves his wife.

Although this seems sort of alarming in the book, it is Austin's restraint that is ultimately his downfall. The people in the town gossip about him and Norah, to the point that he may as well have had an affair. His wife (who it appears never really loved her husband) does not even really appreciate his restraint. In a way, the story is about Austin, Norah, and Martha, in separate ways. Each has his or her own internal struggle with the outside world. None fits properly into society. Each has a downfall due to improper communication.

My Thoughts: I liked this book. I read another book by William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow that really blew me away, and I had been looking forward to picking this book up. Although I did not love it the way I did the novella, I appreciated the writing and the story. The simple prose is refreshing, and the characterization is unique. The book does tend to drag on in the middle, and sometimes I thought entire passages could have been taken out. I also didn't quite understand the character of Martha King, and wish that more attention had been paid to her. She seems to be the most complex. Austin King is the well-meaning husband, totally in love with his wife, but also tragically committed to always doing the "right thing". Norah Potter is the young, idealistic girl who thinks she is in love with a married man, and wants to break free from the life that is expected of her. I thought that I had them figured out from the beginning, but I never understood Martha's character, and thus didn't fully digest the ending (I won't spoil that). Maxwell tells us that she married Austin before she was ready to. But did she ever truly love him? He is clearly devoted to her, so why can't he do anything right? We are privy to Austin's thoughts and Norah's thoughts, but not truly to Martha's thoughts. I don't know if that was on purpose. Until the end, I didn't even fully understand Martha's importance.

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

I started this blog and then I stopped. I got busy, and I've been reading, but I went ahead and got myself a new job and got caught up in traveling, so I've been away. But I'm back, and I have a lot of books to write about. I'm taking the semester off from my part-time postbacc program, so I have all this time to read. My new job is one of those really regulated positions at a big company where I get lots of benefits and only actually work like 6.5 hours a day. It's nice. I get an hour at lunch and I have no one to eat with, so I read a lot. Plus my commute takes forever so I read then, too. What does this have to do with Catch 22? Nothing. I'll get started on that now...

Synopsis: Yossarian is an officer in the U.S. Army during World War II. He is obsessed with the idea that people are trying to kill him. The book is pretty much a ridiculous satire of the war and the soldiers involved in it. Yossarian pretends to be sick so that he can stay in the hospital. He flies missions so that he can be sent home, but every time he gets close to finishing the mission limit, the commanding officer raises them. The characters in this book are hyperbolic and cartoonish, but nonetheless the book is tremendously entertaining and ridiculous. It is a very fun read, although towards the end becomes a little bit heavy as the death toll increases and we finally realize that the characters are actually at war. Although this is disheartening, it is obviously necessary in a book about war, and Joseph Heller does a great job of "ending" the book on a semi-positive note.

My Thoughts: Several years ago, when I was in high school, I picked this book up, read about twelve pages and put it down. It was full of "SAT" words, and the book itself was heavy, and the words so densely packed on the page, that I just did not have the energy to pick it up again. I carried the opinion that it was a dry, boring book around with me -- although I had no justification to actually have that opinion. Then my dad mentioned how much he liked it. And then a few other friends said the same thing. So, I decided to pick it up again, and this time I enjoyed it so much that I could barely put it down to go to sleep at night. I dreamed that I was flying a fighter plane. It is a totally engrossing book, not to mention a sort of brilliantly crafted intellectual exercise. The events become overwhelmingly complex and overlapping. The characters are satirical and often flat, but at the same time each man in the book is a unique example of a characteristic in a soldier. Although this book is not necessarily one of the most profound books in the literary cannon, I do think it makes some insightful points about war, and is certainly more entertaining than many that I have read.