Dead Wake - Eric Larson

Dead Wake, by Eric Larson (author of Devil in the White City), is the captivating and tragic story of the 1915 sinking of the British cruise ship Lusitania. Nearly 1,200 passengers (or "souls") perished after a German U-boat torpedoed the Lusitania, an event that rocked the civilized world and helped draw America into World War 1. Larson's skillful storytelling weaves the events of that fateful year into a thrilling page turner, and his detailed portrayal of characters makes them come alive. President Wilson isn't just the cautious and patient man he seems to be outwardly, he is also a passionate man, driven to distraction by his wife's death, and preoccupied by his subsequent courtship of Edith Bolling. Larson recounts several passengers' tales in vivid detail, and clearly went to some trouble to gather stories about victims as well as survivors, so one is not sure when reading if a given personage will be spared or not in the inevitable tragedy, adding to the suspense of the narrative. A very engrossing read which I recommend to all.

Kindred - Octavia Butler

Kindred is unlike anything I have read before. Set in the 1970s, it is the tale of a modern Black woman living in California who suddenly begins to experience involuntary time travel episodes to antebellum Maryland. Each time Dana is transported to the past, she arrives at a moment of extreme peril for a young plantation owner's son named Rufus Weylin. Repeatedly saving Rufus' life leads them to develop an unlikely bond, but as Rufus gets older and takes over running the plantation (and its many slaves), and as Dana gets sucked into the past for longer and longer stays, she learns first-hand the ugly realities of slavery and the complexity of the relationships it breeds. A truly remarkable and original tale, offering a very compelling first-person account of a cruel and strange time in American history. Powerful and a must-read, in my opinion.

The Dispossessed - Ursula K. LeGuin

For Bookclub this month, we are reading two sci-fi novels by female authors: The Dispossessed (1974), by Ursula K. LeGuin, and Kindred (1979), by Octavia Butler. Both are tremendous!

The Dispossessed is the story of Shevek, a brilliant physicist and revolutionary from Anarres, a moon isolated from its homeworld, Urras, since its settlement by anarchist colonists 179 years ago. Although Anarresti society still largely lives by the teachings of its founder, Odo, Shevek and his friends progressively observe how their freedom has become cramped by bureaucracy and social constraints. Shevek ultimately determines that the only way to achieve his physics masterwork and heal his society is to make an unprecedented journey to Urras, to share his science and reunite the two worlds. 

I really enjoyed Shevek's character, and his zeal for the Odonian way of thinking. Many of Odo's quotes have great attraction for me, as well. For example:

"A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, - this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole."

All in all, a fascinating, surprising, and gripping tale. 

Jude the Obscure

This book, exploring some of Hardy's ideas of marriage and class relationships, was infamous when first published - widely denounced and sometimes burned.  Hardy said that the attacks "completely cured me of further interest in novel-writing" (though he had apparently been thinking of turning almost exclusively to poetry anyway).

Two themes are dominant - the idea that the legally-binding nature of marriage destroys true love and friendship, and that the inaccessibility of university life and learning to those of lower class is ill-founded and destructive.  Jude Fawley, a thoughtful, sensitive, fair-minded person with ambitions to intellectual attainment is the hapless victim of a scheming woman who, once they are married, quickly abandons him.  Jude later falls passionately in love with his cousin Sue, who he believes is his soul-mate - a free-thinking, courageous, independent woman.  Jude is a good man with a strong moral sense, a fiercely independent thinker, with advanced but sensible and kind ideals, and with unwavering devotion to Sue.  Unfortunately, as Jude recognizes, Sue is "a fool! - And she's an angel, too, poor dear!"  Eventually, they live together as man and wife, but without formalizing their "marriage".  The novel is the story of how this highly unorthodox relationship leads to their ruin:

To indulge one's instinctive and uncontrolled sense of justice and right, was not, he had found, permitted with impunity in an old civilization like ours.  It was necessary to act under an acquired and artificial sense of the same, if you wished to enjoy an average share of comfort and honour; and to let loving-kindness take care of itself.

This is a strong, interesting and thoughtful book.  I greatly admired Jude and was absorbed in the exploration of his personality and outlook, but for me, the oversensitive and indecisive Sue was an especially maddening character. Though shocking at the time of its publication, dramatic changes in society have robbed the story of a great deal of its power.