Lady Chatterly

D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover
Begin: ???
End: 08/03/07
Quality: Seven out of Ten.
Reason: Book Club.
Genre: Fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1928.
Fog Index: 7.6
Flesch Index: 74.8
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 5.6
Complex Words: 8%
Number: Three?
Synopsis: It’s basically about a lover affair that develops between a ariscratic lady and the gamekeeper.
Thoughts: I really like this book. It was tough for me to get through since I haven’t really been reading lately and it’s the type of book that really makes me think about a lot of things.

There is so much to talk about here. The trouble is that since it took me so long to get through and since I am exhausted, I will leave at that.

Lady Chatterly

D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover
Begin: ???
End: 08/03/07
Quality: Seven out of Ten.
Reason: Book Club.
Genre: Fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1928.
Fog Index: 7.6
Flesch Index: 74.8
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 5.6
Complex Words: 8%
Number: Three?
Synopsis: It’s basically about a lover affair that develops between a ariscratic lady and the gamekeeper.
Thoughts: I really like this book. It was tough for me to get through since I haven’t really been reading lately and it’s the type of book that really makes me think about a lot of things.

There is so much to talk about here. The trouble is that since it took me so long to get through and since I am exhausted, I will leave at that.

Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Begin: 06/27/07
End: 07/03/07
Quality: Ten out of Ten.
Reason: Reading Plan.
Genre: Fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1987.
Fog Index: N/A
Flesch Index: N/A
Flesch-Kincaid Index: N/A
Complex Words: N/A.
Number: Four?
Synopsis: The story follows Sethe backwards and forwards in time as she confronts the ugly specter of slavery in her life and the life of her family. A young lady named Beloved shows up at her house one day and everything changes for the women at 124.
Thoughts: God, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love and adore this book. It’s a masterpiece. I read her books and sometimes I think that Toni Morrison is god.

Toni Morrison’s Beloved. I am at a loss for words. Morrison writes with such a gift, with such style and lyrical magic. Her books captivate me like no one else can. I don’t know what it is about them. I am a gay cracker, why does this story of an ex-slave and her struggles move me so very much. Why do the writings of this black woman, albeit a brilliant black woman, move me so much? Does it even matter? Isn’t the important thing that I am moved? And I am. No living writer has the power of Toni Morrison’s pen for me.

This story is pretty brutal too. It is a rather bold and innovative look at the repercussions of slavery. The institution that haunts America even up to the present day. You read this story and wonder how Sethe could have done it but yet you also understand. I am not saying that this novel will let you experience the horrors of slavery but I think it will open your eyes better than many other books on the subject and can get you close as any modern day American can get to experience that horror.


“It’s gonna hurt, now,” said Amy. “Anything dead coming back to life hurts.” (35)

“Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit; everything, just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you’d have a little love left over for the next one.” (45)

“Spores of bluefern growing in the hollows along the riverbank float toward the water in silver-blue lines hard to see unless you are in or near them, lying right at the river’s edge when the sunshots are low and drained. Often they are mistook for insects-but they are seeds in which the whole generation sleeps confident of a future. And for a moment it is easy to believe each one has one-will become all of what is contained in the spore: will live out its days as planned. This moment of certainty last no longer than that; longer, perhaps, than the spore itself.” (84)


“Here,” she said, “in this place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in the grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despite it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick them out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ‘cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it. Feet that need to rest and to dance; back that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver-love it, love it and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your lifeholding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.” Saying no more, she stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to say while the others opened their mouths and gave her the music. Long notes held until the four part harmony was perfect enough for their deeply loved flesh.” (88-89)

“Suspended between the nastiness of life and the meanness of the dead, she couldn’t get interested in leaving life or living it, let alone the fright of two creeping-off boys. Her past had been like her present—intolerable—and since she knew death was anything but forgetfulness, she used the little energy left her for pondering color.” (3-4)
“For they understood the source of the outrage as well as they knew the source of light.” (4)
“‘We have a ghost in here,’ she said…. ‘So I hear,’ he said. ‘But sad, your mama said. Not evil.’ ‘No sir…not evil. But not sad either.’ ‘What then?’ ‘Rebuked. Lonely and rebuked….’ ‘I don’t know about lonely….Mad, maybe, but I don’t see how it could be lonely spending every minute with us like it does.’” (13)
“‘I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms. No more running—from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth. I took one journey and I paid for the ticket, but let me tell you something, Paul D. Garner: It cost too much! Do you hear me? It cost too much.” (15)
“What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children.” (23)
“I was talking about time. It’s so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do….” (35-36).
“Listen up. Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside.” (69)
“Daily life took as much as she had. The future was sunset; the past something to leave behind. And if it didn’t stay behind, well, you might have to stomp it out. Slave life; freed life—every day was a test and a trial. Nothing could be counted on in a world where even when you were a solution you were a problem.” (256)

Khaled Hosseini's Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner
Begin: 06/19/07
End: 06/26/07
Quality: Four out of Ten.
Reason: Unread. Recomendation.
Genre: Fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 2003
Fog Index: 7.1/88% are harder.
Flesch Index: 73.7/88% are harder.
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 5.5/86% are harder.
Complex Words: 7/88% have more.
Number: First.
Synopsis: Well, it starts off as the story of two boyhood friends in Kabul and then follows Amir's life as he travels to America and makes a life for himself before he is pulled back into his past life in Afghanistain.
Thoughts: Well, I started off really liking it. It was really sweet and poigant story of two boys growing up in Kabul but then Amir did something which so completly disgusted and enraged me, that I ended up hating him. I don't want to give it away but I found him to be quite detestable. I finished the book. It was okay. I thought that the begining was quite magical but that my hatred of Amir never really let me enjoy the rest of the book. Plus, I thought some of it was quite obvious and cliched. And to further prove this point..."A creative writing teacher at San Jose State used to say about cliche: "avoid them like the plague." Then he'd laugh at his own joke. The class laughed with him, but I always thought cliches got a bum rap. Because, often, they're dead on. But the aprness of the cliched saying is overshadowed by the nature of the saying as a cliche."

David Eddings' The Belgariad

David Eddings' The Belgariad
Begin: 06/13/07
End: 06/18/07
Quality: Ten out of Ten
Reason: Comfort Reading.
Genre: Fiction. Fantasy.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1982
Fog Index: 7.8/87% are harder.
Flesch Index: 73.4/87% are harder.
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 5.8/88% are harder.
Complex Words: 8/82% have more.
Number: Countless.
Synopsis: It's your basic fantasy story. Garion is a farm boy living with his Aunt Pol. They leave in a hurry and get caught up in a magical adventure to reclaim the Orb of Aldur and save the west from Torak.
Thoughts: I was feeling kinda low so so I decided to re-read this series. I love it. I am a little embarrased as it is not exactly literature. It's pretty cheesey and follows the general pattern of fanstay novels. The thing is that I read this story when I was in sixth grade for the first time and constantly come back to it. I know this characters. I love this characters. They are my friends, old old friends. And one cannot live on Shakespeare alone, nor on Morrison alone. Plus, I haven't really been reading that much lately so I figured I needed something light.

William J. Mann's Kate: The Woman who was Hepburn

William J. Mann’s Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn.
Begin: 06/01/07
End: 06/07/07
Quality: Nine out of Ten
Reason: It’s Kate!
Genre: Biography. Cinema.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 10/2006
Fog Index:.N/A
Flesch Index: N/A
Flesch-Kincaid Index: N/A
Complex Words: N/A
Number: First
Synopsis: This is basically just the newest biography of Hepburn. This was goes into very explicit detail over her sexuality and the way in which she shaped her own image.
Thoughts: Damn. It was good. It was also a little disheartening. He dispelled more than a few myths about this woman that I love so very much. I always liked the idea of her and Spencer Tracey’s love affair. It was so romantic and scandalous.
I also liked that it was so very thorough. I mean, it is like a six hundred page tome and it details almost every aspect of her life. Incredible!

Jesse Archer'

Jesse Archer’s You Can Run
Begin: 05/30/07
End: 06/01/07
Quality: Nine out of Ten
Reason: It’s Jesse Archer.
Genre: Queer Studies. Travel Literature. Non-Fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 2007.
Fog Index:.
Flesch Index:
Flesch-Kincaid Index:
Complex Words:
Number: First
Synopsis: This book follows the wacky and hysterical adventures of the author through South America.
Thoughts: God, this was so damn funny. I would be on the bus or the train and just laughing out loud uncontrollably. I got some funny looks for this book. It was so damn amazing. Archer has some very keen observations about so many facets of not only American life but also life in south America as well as about gay men. This book was really amazing.



“As a teacher I discover many different ways to express many different things, and yet in the puzzling language of the heart there is so much incapable of communicating, so many elusive, ineluctable feelings you can’t pin down with so inadequate a function as speech, and instead they are articulated through unforgettably bizarre fucking behavior.” (149)