Blargh!

Dear Joshua, Sometimes there comes a book that makes you want to throw it across the room. I have encountered this a few times for different reasons. I have wanted to throw a book because it was just plain terrible. I have wanted to throw one because it hit so close to home that I wasn't prepared for the blunt honesty and the vacant rooms of my soul opened up unexpectedly.

This time I wanted to throw a book because I just couldn't like it. I tried, I really did. I tried finding the literary merit but was blindsided with a truly bore of a book.

"The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing" was written by M.T. Anderson, the same guy who wrote "Feed," my first review. I raved about "Feed" so I thought for sure that I would love "Octavian." Alas, I did not.

"Octavian" is about an African boy and his mother who were brought into a household during the time of the American Revolution. The house contained a group of scholarly men who were apt to perform experiments on just about anything. Octavian and his mother were obviously part of an experiment. Octavian finds that he is being groomed as an intellectual under the presumption that he could never be one, given his race. He grapples with the concepts of logic and feeling, freedom and slavery. Is intellectual slavery worse than physical slavery?

My professor asked us what makes a book literary. Turns out the majority of students (being English savvy and much better at this sort of thing than I am) decided that there needs to be a good use of literary devices (you know, symbolism, metaphors, etc.) and an outstanding plot. My immediate mental reaction to the question was "It's a work of art." I was thinking about how some people really like Jackson Pollock, even though his stuff sucks so bad that no one can tell a counterfeit from an original. And some people find the Mona Lisa to be the symbol of beauty because of her smile (even though it was the fact that this was the very first depiction of a vanishing point that actually made this piece impressive as opposed to totally ordinary).

I want a book to *thunk* me over my heart and say “Wake up!” That’s what I find literary. Maybe it’s not literary as much as something else entirely, but that’s what makes a good book for me. When you look at the Sistine Chapel, you cannot help but be moved by it. The care, the craftsmanship, the fact that this was the culminating work of one of the greatest artists of all time (note: do not eat your lead paint, for crying out loud!) and everyone can respect it for what it is. You do not have to like art, you do not have to be Christian; you just look at it and another room to your soul opens that you never knew was there. That’s what a good book is. Literary? Maybe, maybe not. I’m not an English major, I don’t know these things. What I do know, is what a good book is.

Your opinionated sister,

Paige