Thehillball BooKMarKs

The author transports the reader from the era of the Great Depression and back to the present. A gentleman who is in his frail state of 93 years old reflects back on his earlier years. As a young man, he had just faced a horrific tragedy in his family, was left with nothing, and so ran off only to find himself working in the circus. And what an eye-opening and life-changing experience that was. From the greedy circus owner, Uncle Al, the dangerous August and his lovely wife, Marlena–the plot just kept on thickening. And the added touch of the animals–especially the charming elephant, Rosie–simply made the story line all the more entertaining.

I was stubborn for so long, not reading this. I think of myself as a tough audience as I bore easily. But wow-o-wow–WHAT a book! It took about getting two thirds through until I simply couldn’t put it down. And bravo to the author for the tremendous amount of detailed research she did. It is quite apparent. I felt like I was truly getting a taste of the Great Depression and a look at the circus life of that time period. My only annoyance was finishing a chapter packed full of suspense, turning the page, only to find myself back in the nursing home with the old man. I think that is just my impatience speaking, though, because in the end the author did a brilliant job of intertwining the past and present–to the point that I got choked up and almost shed a tear (I said almost).

So, in short, read this book! Women and men alike. There are F-bombs, as well as some descriptive (yet somehow not too vulgar) sex scenes with prostitutes and Marlena, so it’s not for all ages (as rarely any books are) but I certainly recommend this.

We have mostly tile throughout the house. The living room, has carpet, and high traffic. We were dogsitting for a few days, and the dog, which is supposedly house-broken, made a mess on the carpet. Good thing we had this steam vac handy. It took out the mess and left no stains. Only gripe is that if you do not replace the reservoir properly after emptying out the dirty water, it will not operate properly. Took about 30 minutes to figure it out and get it right.

Like (probably) most folks who read this book, it was jammed down my throat as Required! Reading! in my Honors English class in High School (I guess they saved it for the Honors class because we were all Ivy-bound brilliants who wouldn’t be seduced into the gutter by all the naughty language and behavior depicted in the book).

Why?

Since when was rebellion for its own sake considered radical in the literary sense?

Reading this book was like getting stuck on the last commuter bus home next to a drunken, rambling teenager.

Its style may have been “radical” for its time, but it’s neither interesting nor particularly well-written. I have no idea why this is considered a “classic.”

To me, an example of a “classic” is something like Frank Herbert’s “Dune”–even though it was written back in the 60′s, before the lunar landing, it still remains an epic story in and of itself, even with the science fiction aspects removed. “Catcher” on the other hand is more of a period piece, and makes for boring reading, like most of the Bronte sisters’ works which we were also required to slog through (oooh, Edwardian social mores, and written by a WOMAN! How RADICAL and RELEVANT!! not….).

In short, this book for me sums up everything that’s wrong with the way that English-language literature is taught in school. No, we shouldn’t let kids read the funnies and the White Pages and call it literacy, but there has been enough new stuff in the past 40 years to push out some of the no-longer relevant stuff.

I was really interested to learn more about this time period in the South – we forget how recent this really is, and how much things have changed in 30 years. The characters are endearing. It was slow to get into, but once I did, I wanted to keep reading. Our book club members loved it and highly recommend it to others.

We had another that we paid a lot for and we had lots of trouble with it. We’ve had this one for over 2 years and have not had a single problem. It’s such a good product that we are about to buy another to take with us one vacation for our game consoles.

Can not even finish reading this book. The characters are so one dimensional as to be laughable. Annoyingly common and typical portryal of southerners, both black and white. If you are looking for dep