Highmoon's Ponderings

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This wasn’t my best year for reading books, I will admit. I had an early surge but after February it all went a bit downhill, and now towards the end of the year I have had to push myself through a couple of books that are really good but that I seem to lack the discipline to finish. I’m looking forward to fixing that in 2010.

I ended up reading a lot more non-fiction than fiction this year, interestingly enough. The fiction I did read this year, however, was fantastic and truly rewarding.

This list includes books, roleplaying games and graphic novels.

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From Goodreads.com:

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible by A.J. Jacobs
rating: 4 of 5 stars

My review

I wasn’t sure what to expect out of this book, aside from a humorous tour of the Bible. I was pleasantly surprised to find an honest, if at times irreverent, attempt by Jacobs to not only follow the Bible as literally as possible (something we discover quite early on is not necessarily as plausible an option), but also to get into the mindset of someone who does follow the Bible out of conviction. Being Jewish, Jacobs spends more time on the “Old Testament” section, grappling, much like his Biblical namesake did, with the divine and the heritage of his ancestors, whether the few generations in recent memory or the Biblical forefathers.

His quest is a bizarre one at times, but while he draws humor out of the whole project, it also showcases what it is to deal with the idea of Divine instructions for living, something I was able to identify with extremely well given the road I traveled on my way to my conversion to Judaism. I also very much appreciate that Jacobs never mocks, even when dealing with ideas that simply do not match the furthest lengths he is willing to stretch his mind; that respect is what makes this book and saves it from the disaster it could have been. Jacobs’ journey shows that you cannot grapple with the Divine and come out unchanged, but it also shows that we each have our own path to take when it comes to our relationship to the Divine and that each path is a valid one.

You may leave comments here or over at Goodreads.com.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri 
rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is easy to see why Lahiri won critical acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize with Interpreter of Maladies: these are stories that resound with emotional punch, unhindered by gimmicky prose or twisted plot devices, laser-focused explorations of the human condition. Though Bengali immigrants are Lahiri’s predominant type of characters, we also get a couple of stories set in India, where we get to see a glimpse of the society the other characters have emmigrated from. This is the kind of book that anyone can read and get lost in, and in fact, everyone should.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 
rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a fantastic novel by a talented writer. To me a good book is characterized by two things: it makes me want to read more from that author, and it makes me want to write as well, reminds me of the magic of the written word. The Namesake accomplishes both.

Anyone who is an immigrant, or can still identify with their immigrant heritage, is sure to connect with the story of the Gangulis, whether they are the immigrants themselves or the first generation of Whatever-American. Lahiri’s simple prose gets to the emotional point of each sentence without making it sappy or heavyhanded; you truly come to care for each member of the family and their own struggle, and especially for Gogol, whom you learn his past and present and surrounding circumstances straight from their own point of view. There is no gimmick here, no surprise revelation, no conspiracy of any sort, just a straightforward story of lives lived between two sides of one self, and the reprecussions of lives split in two, whether the parts are old/young, male/female, Bengali/American, past/future.

After reading The Namesake there is no doubt left why Lahiri is hailed as one of the best new writers in modern American literature, why we suddenly care so much about the lives and dreams of the Bengali-Americans that inhabit her stories: in many ways, they are us, and we are them, and Lahiri is slowly showing that truth one brilliant book at a time.

Up, Up, and Oy Vey!: How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero is an excellent (if quick) look at the influence of Jews, Judaism and Torah on the creation of the genre of comic books. Rabbi Simcha Weinstein is an avid collector who knows the genre, knows the history, and presents it in very digestable format based around a concept and a superhero or team of heroes that embody it. Jews make up a disproportionate percentage of the early pioneers of the comic book genre mainly because in the 30s and 40s it was one of the few jobs Jews could have in publishing, and whether consciously or not, these guys drew on their experiences as Jews (and all that entailed, from the immigrant/children of immigrants experience, to their varying levels of observance, to their place in a still anti-Semitic society) when creating the characters that would live for decades to come and become American icons. There are books that tackle the subject more in depth, but this one has the advantage of also expounding the connection to the Torah, which makes it unique in the field of Jewish publications. Any Jewish fan of comic books should get and read this book for sure.

(Taken from GM Skarka, Judd Karlman, Steve Kenson, et.al.)

Entertainment Weekly has a web article where some famous folks talk about the comic book that hooked them.

For me, it was my first American comic: The Amazing Spider-Man #300.

It was 1988, I was 13; I was at the mall with my family and I was allowed to wander off to the nearby toy store while they shopped for clothes or something. I’d gone into this store before to look at the toys, but I’d never paid attention to the area near the front where they had a bunch of comics. For some reason that day I decided to take a look over there, and this issue grabbed my attention immediately. Spider-man in black?! Awesome!

I went over to my mom and asked for $2 to buy the comic, which she gave me without any fuss (I think it’s because it was for the comic book and not for video games) and I bought my first (American) comic. Now, I’d been buying comics for a long time already, but mostly of the .25-cents funny book variety in Spanish, of which they carried a lot in the stores in Puerto Rico (as well as some comics brought over from Mexico, like Memin and Kaliman), but Spider-Man 300 was the one that truly hooked me into comics as a hobby (addiction), one that I would indulge in for about a decade after that.

These days I don’t really buy comics anymore; I’ve lost patience with the monthly format and frankly, I’m so out of touch that, every time I go to the comics store thinking about getting back in, I get so lost that I simply leave. I did start buying some trade paperbacks for Marvel’s new Ultimate line (X-Men in particular) and have enjoyed them a lot, so I have kept buying them. My friend Josh is still very much a comics addict, so I now raid his house for new stuff to read.

Funny thing is, even though I started with Spider-Man, shortly thereafter I dropped it (after the wedding issue, I believe) and made the jump to the title(s) that would become my absolute favorite to this day, X-Men.