January has already come to an end. That doesn’t feel right. I could have swore we just celebrated the New Year. I read three books and abandoned two others this month. While some might think it’s unfair to include books I didn’t finish to my ranking for this month, I would argue that my inability to finish them speaks to their quality. That said, “Fourth Wing” comes in at the bottom of the list for me. If you want my in-depth thoughts on this book, feel free to read my Goodreads review of it. The long and the short of it is that I found the writing to be poor and the story has been done in far better books by much more talented authors. Just scraping itself above “Fourth Wing” is “Absolution”. Again, I have left a detailed review of this book on Goodreads. The reason this book ranks higher than “Fourth Wing” can be attributed to the quality of its writing by comparison. The story is incredibly boring, but even when his stories fall flat VanderMeer’s writing is always meticulous. Above “Absolution” comes “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons From the Crematory”. I can’t understate that while this book is ranked just one position above “Absolution”, it is miles ahead of it in quality and story.
It was difficult to decide the rankings between “King of Scars” and “Stella by Starlight”. They are both excellently written and captivating stories in their own ways. They both have important elements and messages. But… I ultimately chose to rank “Stella by Starlight” as my number one for this month because it is so relevant to our current political climate. It is books like this that our current “leaders” would have burned. It’s books like “Stella by Starlight” that certain groups would have destroyed for the sake of rewriting history in a way that makes them more comfortable. Which is exactly why we need these books now more than ever. So here’s how this month’s rankings stand:
- “Stella by Starlight” by Sharon M. Draper
- “King of Scars” by Leigh Bardugo
- “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons From the Crematory” by Caitlin Doughty
- “Absolution” by Jeff VanderMeer
- “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros
I am still reading: “Priory of the Orange Tree”, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, “The Origin of the Species/The Voyage of the Beagle”, and “The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe”. Thus far, I am enjoying “Priory of the Orange Tree” the most and “The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe” the least. Priory could easily be overlooked as too slow for some. While it is certainly a slow burn, I would argue that this is exactly what makes it so enjoyable. I feel myself slowly being engulfed by the world and its nuances. The feeling I get while reading Priory is similar to the feeling of being told stories around a campfire. While I am not as far in Campbell, Darwin, or Poe’s books, I do have a few thoughts on each.
The Hero’s Journey is a literary template I have been aware of for about as long as I have been a writer. I was told countless times how Joseph Campbell’s book breaks down numerous stories and myths from around the world to form this consistent thread of how stories play out. However, I’ve always been someone who prefers to draw my own conclusion, rather than be told what the common belief is. So I picked up a copy of “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” to evaluate Campbell’s work for myself. The thing I am most surprised about, thus far, is Campbell’s use of Sigmond Freud and Carl Jung’s work in the field of Psychology to justify some of his reasoning and conclusions. Having a degree in Psychology, I know that Freud’s work is not nearly as utilized as it once was. In fact, much of his work has been discredited in modern Psychology. While Jung’s work is more foundational in the field of Psychology, it is more his later work than his earlier. Early in Jung’s career he studied after Freud (as did most Psychologists at the time) and his work reflects that. It wasn’t until later that he broke away from Freud’s theories to form his own (though he certainly still used Freud’s as a base). That in mind, I do find it somewhat troubling that Campbell refers back to Freud’s work so often. He regularly uses Frued’s theories as the foundation for his own evaluation/interpretation of stories. This begs the question of just how sound his work is when our society no longer credits the man whose theories his foundation sits upon.
While I can appreciate what I have read of Poe thus far, I unfortunately can’t say that I’ve liked any of it. Poe was clearly ahead of his time, dreaming up adventures that don’t seem quite so far fetched in modern society. However, some of these adventures are far more long-winded than they need to be. I feel I’ve done more skimming than actual reading of Poe at this point.
Reading through Darwin’s work has been a strange experience. There are moments he seems more aware of the double standards of the world than even modern men. However, he regularly unburdens himself of this awareness by justifying that a slave owner is otherwise a decent person or just shrugging things off all together because that’s “just how things are” and/or “have always been”. It is a surreal experience to read the words of a man who is brilliant and inquisitive, while simultaneously knowing he is an overly privileged and entitled explorer. He wants to understand the workings of the world, but sees no issue in burning it down in the process.