Not a Bore, But Not a Thrill

At first, when I began to read The Bean Trees, I had quite low expectations. Barbara Kingsolver is not exaactly an author whose literature enthralls me; science fiction and the occasional fantasy novel are right up my alley. However, I was pleasantly surprised with my reaction toward the short novel. It had a compelling story, for being a dramatic, romantic chick novel, and had enough humor to not bore the fantasy reader.

The story concerns Marietta Greer, a girl from Pittman County, Kentucky. She finally leaves her small town to go west in her early 20s. While on her trip, she changes her name to Taylor. While at a bar in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, an old Indian woman walks up to her car and puts a small baby in the front seat. Taylor decides that she cannot abandon the child, so she takes the little child with her out west all the way to Tuscon. She discovers that the child is a girl, and names her Turtle.

Another main character of the novel is Lou Ann Ruiz, another woman from Kentucky living in Tuscon. Her husband, Angel, left her right after she gave birth to a son, who she named Dwayne Ray. Lou Ann Ruiz is having trouble coping with the loss of her husband, while having to care for another body and feed another mouth. Lou Ann and Taylor meet and become thick as thieves, so that Lou Ann lets Taylor live with her.

Taylor meets other people, including Mattie, the owner of Jesus Is Lord Used Tires, and Esperanza and Estevan, a Guatemalan couple living with Mattie. They are very nice people, but the couple could be arrested for being illegal immigrants, and Mattie could be punished for giving them room and board.

The rest of the story shows how Taylor raises Turtle with support from Lou Ann and Dwayne Ray, the way Taylor makes a living and meets new people in Tuscon, and how Mattie deals with Esperanza and Estevan, with their legal and personal issues. Turtle grows to be a young child under the caring motherhood of Taylor, while Dwayne Ray matures under Lou Ann.

Kingsolver's first novel was a decent book. The plot was compelling enough, and the characters had personalities that did not make the book a complete bore. There was nothing deliberately bad about The Bean Trees, but there was not anything truly good about it, either.

http://www.amazon.com/Bean-Trees-Novel-P-S/dp/0061765228/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247628924&sr=8-1

Grade: 6.5

A Satire For Our Time

With the current American economy and the unhappiness people have with the federal government, it seems as if there can never be a perfect civilization. One literary example of this is William Golding's Lord of the Flies, a satirical novel about British children during a great war. This novel has been proclaimed by TIME as one of the best 100 English-language books of all time.

Lord of the Flies opens on a deserted island, at the wreckage of the crash of an airplane that had been carrying British schoolboys away from the war-torn England. Ralph, an older child whose father was in the navy, meets another child, who wore glasses, was fat, and had asthma. The child does not reveal his name, but is known only as Piggy. Ralph is calm, democratic, and charismatic, while Piggy is frightful, disliked, and bossy. The two boys find a conch in a small body of water, and Ralph blows the conch. All the boys on the island go to the sound of the conch.

The conch in the story represents order and democracy. It is used to unite the children, and only he holding the conch is allowed to speak at the boys' assemblies. The conch is probably the most metaphorical item in the entire book.

When the boys unite after Ralph called them, the character Jack is introduced. Jack Merridew is the head of a choir to which many boys belong. He proclaims his desire to be elected chief of the island, but loses the election to Ralph. Ralph gives the resentful Jack command over his choir as hunters for the boys. The civilization on the island is created.

The story continues to explain the rise and fall of the civilization, and the decisions that all of the boys eventually have to make to follow Jack or Ralph. While Ralph stands for order and reason, Jack's tribe is fun and puts a large emphasis on violence, especially the hunt for pigs. Jack and Ralph are perfect foils for each other and are allegories for evil and good, respectively. Other characters include Roger, the spearman and Jack's lieutenant, and Simon, the voice of reason for Ralph and symbol of purity.

Lord of the Flies is a great satire for today. The point that no government created by man can last forever without trouble is true. The way that Golding writes the novel using children, who are so innocent but have so much potential for evil, is chilling. This novel has lasted for years and will last for several more as an excellent novel for modern civilizations.

http://www.amazon.com/WIDEVIEW-PERIGEE-BOOKS-William-Golding/dp/B000FXT2LA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247432738&sr=8-1

Grade: 8.5