Finished: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (Fielding) This was a very good book with ANOTHER happy ending!! What's going on with my British Lit here?? :-) At over 800 pages, the author did get a bit preachy and wordy in his descriptions at times....especially including a message to readers, critics, etc. taking up the first chapter of each of the books within the book. That was completely unnecessary to me. I don't like it when authors break that dimensional plane...is that what it's called? Anyway, the story itself was compelling and kept me interested. Tom Jones, the hero of the story, was not all like what I imagined Tom Jones to be. I for some reason always thought Tom Jones was a womanizing scoundrel, but he wasn't at all that. He was a very young man who had a couple of dalliances that got him into some trouble but then he fell in love with Sophia Western, the heroine of the story, and his heart was true to her from that moment on! The problem was...Sophia was from a well-to-do family and Tom was a bastard child who had simply been raised by a well-to-do man, Mr. Allworthy. Yes, he was just like his name sounds...a very compassionate, worthy man. Taking in what he thought to be a town girl's illegitimate child when she abandoned it, he raised Tom like his own son, giving him all the benefits of a gentleman's upbringing. And, when Mr. Allworthy's sister married and had her own son, always only known by his last name, Blifil, the boys were raised together. Of course, the story being predictable, Blifil was really the scoundrel, and pretty hateful behind Tom's back, while Tom grew up with the most honorable and appreciative of inner beings. So, when Tom and Sohpia fall in love, neither can even acknowledge it because his history of being a bastard with no fortune of his own to his name is well known ,and a lady cannot marry beneath her in that day and age. All manner of things occur to keep them apart, mainly Mr. Western trying to marry Sophia off to Blifil, which prompts her to run away to London. Both Tom and Sophia go through many trials and tribulations, but always maintain their love for each other. And, in the end, it is discovered that it was really Mr. Allworthy's sister who secretly gave birth to Tom before she was married, and before she could tell anyone, she passed away. Of course, she had left an explanatory letter with a lawyer who had handed the letter to Blifil (then a young man), who, in one of his more dastardly deeds, never showed his uncle and never let Tom know that he was, in fact, his own half brother. Anyway, it all comes out in the end and Sophia is free to marry Tom. All the good people are happy in the end, and all the not good people meet less than happy fates, but not fatal fates, lol. Yay!

Finished: The Tin Drum (Grass) Still digesting this very bizarre, yet attention-holding Nobel Prize winning book! I wasn't looking forward to reading this one from the Top 100 list, but now I'm really glad I did...even if it might not make my personal Top 100 list. It is obviously good literature, even if I might not "get" all the double, political meanings of everything. There is so much reference to World War II, through imagery and different metaphors, including the storming of Normandy, and the taking over of Danzig by the approaching Russians, and more. I think this is probably what gave the book it's Nobel Prize winning status. If you read between the lines, or I guess, read the lines and are able to interpret what they mean, it can be very powerful. I don't think my brain understood as much of it as it should...but then I didn't live during that time. I think sometimes you have to have truly experienced the war horrors and history being made to totally grasp it. I don't know.

Reading this story of Oskar Matzerath, a patient in a mental institution who stopped growing at the age of three and lived his entire life through banging on his tin drum is kind of like a train wreck...you just can't look away. I do like the author's writing, which is always important in keeping me engaged. Oskar weaves his tale, going back to the conception of his mother under his grandmother's huge skirts as she squatted in a potato field and harbored his soon-to-be grandfather, who took refuge under those skirts while running from authorities. While grandmother, Anna, pointed the authorities in the wrong direction, Joseph impregnated the helpful stranger. Once married, Anna and Joe had daughter, Agnes, who becomes Oskar's mother. The story takes place in Danzig in the beginning  years of World War II. Agnes falls in love with her Polish cousin, Jan Bronski, but they resist their love and Agnes marries German grocer, Alfred Matzerath. However, Agnes and Jan can't keep their hands off of each other, so Jan becomes a friend of the family and Agnes and Jan begin a love affair right under the nose of Alfred...who seems more interested in German party activities and cooking exotic meals anyway. Of course, Agnes becomes pregnant and gives birth to Oskar, who has the Bronski blue eyes. As Oskar grows up, in his mind he considers Jan to be his father, and Alfred his "presumptive" father. Oskar is born with extreme intelligence and can understand everything from the moment he's born. He hears his father say that Oskar will follow him into the grocery business and he hears his mother say that on his third birthday, she will buy Oskar a tin drum. Oskar decides then and there he will never be a grocer. He waits patiently for three years for his tin drum...going through all the antics of being a baby, etc. On his third birthday, sure enough Oskar gets his tin drum. He decides that he is picture perfect with his drum, and therefore, should never grow another inch. Oskar throws himself down the cellar stairs when the door is accidentally left open and while suffering only a small head injury, true to his word, he doesn't grow another inch. Doctors blame the fall. Though he does grow in mental  years, he acts to his family like a three year old until after he's into his 20's. Oh, and along with that, he develops this ear-piercing talent of breaking what glass he likes with his screams. So...just try and take that drum away from him! The story then goes on to tell all about how Oskar deals with his mother's death due to eating too much fish, his real father's death while defending the Polish post office in the war, his presumptive father's death by choking on his party pin after swallowing it to hide it from the invading Russians; and how he falls in love with Maria, then Roswitha, and how he even father's a child by Maria....all when he's in all their minds, just a three year old. After his "presumptive" father, Alfred, dies Oskar realizes just how much Alfred really meant to him and he throws his drum into the grave with Alfred, gives up drumming, and decides to finally grow. And grow he does...but only about another foot in height. He also grows a hump, and his head grows a bit abnormally large. In other words, he appears to be more of a "dwarf", as he is called, than just a small child. I don't know if he was actually a "little person" all along, or not. After all, he is telling this story from a mental institution, so what do we believe? And, so the story goes on and on and flits back and forth between Oskar in the mental institution then back to his life story. Oskar does all kinds of things...becomes the Christ-like leader of a group of teen hooligans, does a stint in a traveling circus-like show with his mentor and friend, Bebra the dwarf, becomes a gravestone carver, becomes a nude model, takes the drum back up and becomes a drummer in a jazz band, and then on his own stage show, becomes wealthy...AND...falls in love with a nurse, Dorothea, who lives in his same rental flat, but who he never sees face to face. However, when Dorothea ends up murdered, Oskar is suspected, tried, declared insane, and committed to the institution where he spends two years drumming away on his drum once again, and reliving his life by "drumming" it out. At the end of the story, Oskar turns 30 years old and finds out from  his lawyer that they have a new suspect in Dorothea's murder and that he will likely be set free. Oskar laments about what he will do back in the real world. It sounds bizarre, because it is, but in a way I can't put my finger on, it is also intriguing. :-)

A couple of interesting quotes: When Agnes tries to take Oskar to Kindergarten when he turns 5, needless to say, Oskar has a terrible first day, shatters all kinds of windows, and is asked by the teacher not to return. There is a quote that blew my mind!

No more pencils. No more books. No more teacher's dirty looks.

OMG...aren't those the lyrics to Alice Cooper's School's Out For Summer written at least 30 years later?? I was just floored by that...wondering if Alice Cooper was some literary guy or something, lol.

The next quote I liked was when Oskar was born and heard his mother's first words:

    Mama was thinking less about the business and more about equipping her son: "Well, I knew it would be a boy, even if I sometimes said it would be a little lass."
    Thus prematurely acquainted with feminine logic, I heard the following: "When little Oskar is three years old, we'll give him a tin drum."

I just love that part..."thus prematurely acquainted with feminine logic"...lol

Finished: The Woman in White (Collins) Finally, a book written in the 1800's with a happy ending...and what's more...it was a page-turner! This one definitely deserves it's spot on the Top 100 list. :-) The author was too subtle for me to put my finger on it, but he kept me in suspense with each chapter, and I just had to keep reading to see what was going to happen! I feared the worst, having read so many books written about English folks in the 1700's and 1800's. I was so pleasantly surprised to get a happy ending...even though in the middle of the book we think the beloved heroine, Laura Fairlie, had died. I just knew there was a switcheroo up his sleeve, and rather than Laura dying, her look-a-like, the "woman in white" Ann Catherick had died instead and had been mourned and buried in her place! The book is far too immense for me to outline the entire plot, but I'll give a brief synopsis. The young drawing master, Walter Hartright, is hired to be the drawing instructor for young adult sisters, Marian and Laura Fairlie. Since the death of their parents, they have lived with their uncle at his massive estate, and Laura Fairlie, age 20, stands to inherit the entire property when her uncle dies, and a nice sum of money when she turns 21 left to her by her parents. Marian isn't in the inheritance discussion because Laura's father (the brother of the uncle) had married Marian's mother (a widow) after she already had Marian, so Laura and Marian are half-sisters who are devoted to each other, nonetheless. As you might assume, Walter falls in love with Laura, and she with him, but they never act on their feelings or even admit them because, sadly, Laura is engaged to be married to Sir Percival Glyde. This arranged marriage was promised to her father on his deathbed, and though Laura hardly knows Percival, she is bound to the marriage. Marian breaks the news to Walter and they all three realize that the proper thing for him to do is leave right away. Before he can leave, though, Laura receives a disorienting letter from a woman who claims that she should stay far away from Percival Glyde...that he is evil and will ruin her life. Walter and Marian set out to find out who wrote the letter and if it could possibly be true. Walter thinks back to when he first walked up the road to arrive at the estate and he recounts his exchange with a mysterious woman dressed all in white in the middle of the night who he came across on the road. She was in apparent distress and asked him only for his help in procuring her a cab. Walter aids her and can't shake the meeting with the mysterious woman. As Walter and Marian dig deeper, it turns out that the woman in white wrote the letter! She was actually an escapee from an asylum who had known Laura's mother as a young girl. Laura's mother had been the only person who was kind to her. And, as a young girl, she bore a striking resemblance to Laura! Her name was....Ann Catherick. As the plot goes on after Walter says a heartbreaking goodbye to Laura, Percival charms and ingratiates himself into the family. You can just tell that he's up to no good! He brings along his good friend, and Italian expatriate, Count Fosco and his wife...who just happens to be the aunt of Laura and Marian and the sister of their uncle. The uncle had disowned her of her substantial inheritance years before when she married the Count against his wishes. Upon reading that, you just know that Percival, the Count and the Countess are all in it together to get Laura's money....especially when Percival's lawyer insists that the huge inheritance that Laura will receive when she's 21 shall go to her husband if Laura predeceases him, and not her sister as she had planned. As it turns out, both Sir Percival and the Count are broke and desperate for money, so dangerous plots ensue! Rather than kill Laura, though, they actually find the mysterious woman in white, who Percival detests because he thinks she knows a deep, life-changing secret of his. She is already suffering from a bad heart, and it doesn't take much to excite her into fainting into death. They then drug Laura and have her committed to the asylum, declaring she is Ann Catherick, and they "mourn", bury and inherit the money of the dead, Laura. It takes the determination and courage of both Walter and Laura's sister Marian to figure things out and realize that Laura isn't dead at all! She is frail, however, and doesn't remember many details of how things occurred. As they nurse her back to good health, Walter goes on a mission to find out Percival's secret, to prove that Laura is very much alive, to bring her good name back to her uncle, to make Percival and the Count both pay, and to have her name removed from the burial cross where she was laid to rest with her mother. And....oh my gosh...it all actually happens. :-) And, as Laura grows stronger, she and Walter rekindle their old love and are able to marry after Percival accidentally burns himself up in a rectory trying to destroy the evidence of his big secret, hee hee! That is a very short summary of what turned out to be a really good book! So glad I stuck to my guns to complete the Top 100 list!

Finished: Missing You (Coben) Another page-turner by one of my favorite contemporary authors. :-) I'm thinking that Coben may be introducing a new police detective, Kat Donovan, who he will write more stories for. I like her already. And, her story didn't really finish when the crimes in this book were solved. Yes....the bad guy...Titus Monroe is still alive and kicking at the end. I definitely smell a sequel. And, I love how Harlan Coben makes references to his other characters who he has written several novels about...Myron Bolitar, Win Lockwood, Esperanza, etc. All in all, a great read, especially for the beachy days in the Bahamas. :-)

Finished: Night (Wiesel) It blows my mind every time I read about a person's concentration camp experience during WWII that my parents were alive and teenagers while this was going on. How could this happen in our world?? I know other horrific things have happened in my lifetime. I just can't ever shake myself of the horror that Hitler put these innocent people through. Night is Elie Wiesel's personal story of his family being torn apart...women one way, and most likely incinerated in the giant chimney the first night of separation, and men the other way. He was fifteen years old and managed to stay at the same camps as his father, who passed away towards the end of their horrific experience. Elie was sixteen when they were finally liberated, but oh the horrors they went through. :-( Have I used the word horror too much? I don't think so. How about the word chimney? It has an entirely different, heartbreaking and permanent meaning to Elie Wiesel than it will ever have to me. How sad is that? There really are no words.

Finished: Finnegans Wake (Joyce), or as I call it, the emetic jibberish of Finnegans Wake. I hope to never waste that much time of my life reading such a useless piece of  "literature" again. That is all.