Rochelle's Blog ::: Subtitles Included

I got a Kindle for Christmas and I absolutely love it! I actually got it toward the beginning of December, so I could take it with me to Phoenix.

Now, I am patiently (not really) waiting for an adorable Kindle skin to come by mail.

How cute is that?

Much like with any new toy, I am obsessed with it. But to be perfectly honest it has helped me get back into reading and it helps me read books faster and truthfully, lets me get lost in the book so much more. I’m really focusing when I read. I’m not sure why that is exactly, but I feel like it has something to do with the configuration. The way that my body rests as I hold the single unit keeps me from shifting and moving like I do when I read regular books. And sadly, I think the font size plays a big part too. I don’t have to move the unit further or closer, making me uncomfortable, to see the text. I can simply adjust the text size.

Anyway, I’m not here to sell you a Kindle (although I highly recommend one), I’m here to tell you about what I’ve read since I got it.

The first thing I read was…

Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

I’ve got TWO of those chunky Charles Dickens anthologies. For the past several years, I’ve sworn to myself that I would read my favorite tale, since I had never before. Each year, I started, but didn’t complete it. So I spent all of $0.00 on the Kindle edition and went to town. Before I knew it, I was entrenched. Then for the last Stave, I decided to read it out of my favorite anthology.

But besides just bragging about how the Kindle worked out so nicely, I have to tell you how pleasantly surprised I was at the story itself and the writing.

Obviously—Charles Dickens is a great writer and spins a great yarn, but I had no idea how fun it was to read. I think his writing is completely brilliant. Here’s how he describes the dancing at Fezziwig’s party….

It’s so poetic in a way, and I can’t help but love, “In came the three Misses Fezziwig, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke.”

And then I changed pace completely, and read…

Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol

I also own this book in print and tried a few times to start reading it. Struggled and was then able to get it on the Kindle and finish it.

Ugh…what to say about this. It eventually became fun to read and you can’t help but call it a page turner because of the way he writes and divides his chapters. It’s such a trick though, and therefore frustrates me. For the first half of the book, I spent the majority of my time rolling my eyes.

I hate his characters. They are people I would never want to know in real life. They are so perfect and intelligent and they certainly know it. They have stupid flaws that don’t make them more human, but simply more contrived.

To diversify his characters, he gives them silly physical characteristics that he is constantly reminding the reader about. The Solomons have grey eyes. Who has grey eyes? Trish, Katherine’s assitant, is apparently overweight. We are constantly reminded that she is chubby. And guess what?? Dan Brown thought it wise to actually have more than white people in his book. So he modeled a character after Barack Obama. He repeatedly refers to Bellamy (rolls eyes) as the “tall and elegant African-American” man. I get it. He’s black. Must I be reminded every time he says something, does something, or Robert Langdon observes him. Seriously.

And his villian is too ridiculous and contrived to even relate to you.

About half way through, I realized that Dan Brown and his peeps (publisher, editor), must have realized that if they make the “mystery” somewhat easy to figure out as a reader, that we’ll feel good about ourselves and keep reading his work. I was legitimately pissed when I figured out one of the core “gotchas” the second a particular character was introduced.

Then there was the ridiculous use of technology. As a semi-technologist, who sort of understands her way around Interwebs and what it takes to code something, program, hack, etc., the “spider” that Trish the chubby assistant creates is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. And it’s not even her spider that goes and searches every online source ever! But the task given to her is the most ridiculous thing ever.

Find out if a particular theory (a set of keywords), has ever been corrobarated in ANY LANGUAGE, EVER!

And Trish is all like, “Yeah, no prob. Should only take about 15 minutes.”

Yeah.

I wonder if Dan Brown’s character Robert Langdon could interpret this ancient symbol….

Now, I don’t know if it was just love for my shiny new Kindle, or because it actually got better, but I did end up planted in my big chair not wanting to put the device down for several hours.

At the end of the experience, I felt slightly satisfied and would describe it as a “fun read.” And by fun read, I mean fun to make fun of and slightly fun to read.

And most recently, I finished reading…

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights

Another book I happen to own in print, I got this for just $.50 on the Kindle. When I was in high school I took a couple of Honors English classes, which always required summer reading. I believe it was for sophmore year, we had the choice of what to read, and Wuthering Heights was on the list. I didn’t end up reading it, but ever since then have been slightly fascinated with the tale, and truly wanting to understand what it’s all about. I had always heard it was a dark tale of tragic romance, which is pretty much up my alley.

So, 15 years later, I finally put myself to the task. I think it came about at the right time.

They say that people fall into two camps….those that LOVE it and those that HATE it. There’s not a whole lot of in between. I fell into the loving it category.

I’m in awe of Bronte’s gumption to take on such a dark tale with such horribly flawed (in a good way, not a Dan Brown way) characters, which she somehow makes half of her readers sympathize and identify. Truly excellent, particularly for it’s time.

This was a true pleasure to read and quite a diversion. She’s like the anti-Jane Austen. I appreciate and love Jane Austen so much, because she gives her characters what they want and that’s what I try to do for my characters. But Bronte got me thinking a little bit about how to make relationships more intense and not as easy.

Anyway, I was really inspired by it and am so glad that I finally got around to it.

Also–there’s lots of film adaptations. I’d like to watch more of them, but I did watch the one that streams on NetFlix. It’s a BBC Masterpiece Classic attempt from 2009 and I think it’s quite good!

And just to prove that there’s a fan montage for EVERYTHING….here’s one for that:

So what I’m reading now….Sherlock Holmes! Only $.99 on the kindle for all of the Doyle’ s Holmes novels and short stories!