Prolific Living

fiction

Louisa May Alcott: “Little Women”

by

Reading Little Women on the iPhone

I did not expect to find so much lasting imagery from Louisa May Alcott’s beautiful “Little Women“:

The sisters writing plays and acting them out loudly up in their attic.
Mother coming home to 4 overjoyed girls who hang on her every word and move.
The sisters packing up their Christmas breakfast – tea and hot water included – and taking it for the desolate family next door.
The Pick Wick Paper, their own creation, newspaper layout complete with advertisements and articles.
Jo writing her novels with a pen and ink, the not-so-long-ago days even before the typewriter and the joys of writing on paper.
Laurie proposing to Jo and his bitter shock when she refuses him.
The rush of grief, emotion and anguish from loss of a sister which compel Jo to write her greatest novel yet.

I have been on a voracious consumption of the classics for over a year now, a journey of [Read more…] about Louisa May Alcott: “Little Women”

Alexandre Dumas: “The Count of Monte Cristo”

by

Alexander Duma on the Kindle

Dear Monsieur Dumas,

It is the year 2010 today, nearly 166 years since you published The Count of Monte Cristo. Your contemporaries recognized it as the accomplishment it is, which is the least we can say for the treasures which have come to us from your period. It makes me immensely happy when a society understands a genius masterpiece in all its brilliance during the lifetime of its creator. Still, you would probably like to know that The Count of Monte Cristo, your labor of love and sweat, is cherished and recognized as a magnificent novel in the world to this day. It is even part of the reading requirement in most school education programs, albeit they sadly choose the abridged version much to your (and my) dismay. Not knowing any better when I was much younger, I too read the abridged version, which even in its brevity, left an indelible mark on me and a desire for return for more someday. [Read more…] about Alexandre Dumas: “The Count of Monte Cristo”

Dan Brown: “The Lost Symbol”

by

Finally, I broke the sweet spell of Anna Karenina! Not counting the wonderful short read of Alice in Wonderland on my iPhone, I managed to finish a respectable book following Tolstoy: Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol”. Truth be told, I pre-ordered my copy last September (can you tell how I felt about The DaVinci Code, not to mention Angels & Demons?) and let it collect dust, waiting for inspiration to hit me (A Washington DC setting? Really? After Italy and France?), and I kept waiting. After seeing this book featured in every imaginable book store window everywhere during my recent travels (Montreal, Seattle, DC, Argentina, London, Hawaii, you-name-it), my curiosity got the best of me and two weeks ago, I cracked open this 509 page hard cover, determined not to stop til all lost symbols were found and clearly explained!

Reading the Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

[Read more…] about Dan Brown: “The Lost Symbol”

Leo Tolstoy: “Anna Karenina”

by

“All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

With these captivating words, the supreme Russian artist, Leo Tolstoy, opens his magnificent masterpiece, Anna Karenina, and grips at my heart from that first paragraph until the closing words, 963 pages later. It is impossible to express everything I felt and experienced and learned from inhaling every word of Anna Karenina and yet I remain pertinacious to attempt so, a month after its completion. During this time, I have tossed one book after another aside, not because I found them to be in poor taste, only because it has been impossible to reap pleasure from lesser purity, lesser prose, lesser richness, anything lesser than Anna K. Reading Tolstoy is falling in love – with reading, with words, with characters, with thoughts, with dialogues, and with Anna and Tolstoy both – and finishing Anna K is that first love’s broken heart, never again will a novel touch me this profoundly, move me this deeply, and ache me so much. At least, I am sorely convinced as such today.

Reading Anna Karenina near Pacific Ocean

[Read more…] about Leo Tolstoy: “Anna Karenina”

John Irving: “A Prayer for Owen Meany”

by

Reading A Prayer for Owen Meany in the balcony

“A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving is an uncommon story. It is a compelling read but not an easy one. The writing evokes so much anxiety, sadness, pleasure, frustration, and laughter throughout but most of all, you read with unquenchable curiosity about the character whose name bears the title of the book, a character you will be hard pressed to ever forget: Owen Meany.

The themes of Christianity along with discrepancies of various denominations, American politics and foreign policies, Vietnam war, and life in New England small towns among other similar subplots shape the backdrop of this book. Themes and elements which fall entirely outside my general reading genre. Even so, I believe we sometimes should seek diversion [Read more…] about John Irving: “A Prayer for Owen Meany”