First, it was my choice to read it, which automatically makes it a better read than high school. But I seem to remember more action taking place throughout the whole book. The first half simply gives the flavor of East coast high society without much actually happening. There was a melancholy throughout that I don’t remember the first time through, a grasping on to the past. There is a hopeful glamour to Gatzby’s life, he came from poverty into a lot of money, but he didn’t understand money or live in money like many of the other characters do. His voice is not “full of money” like his love Daisy.

This book is considered a masterpiece, and I suppose I must agree or sound like a sophomore in high school. What I thought most about while reading this book, however, was how it compares to Hemingway. Hemingway writes about Fitzgerald in “A Moveable Feast” — how alcoholic, ill-tempered, and child-like Fitzgerald was, how in love with Zelda he was, and how much he relied upon his friends. I wondered how much of Gatsby was influenced by Fitzgerald’s life. Gatsby (stunningly) did not drink while everyone around him did. Did Fitzgerald wonder what that was like? Gatsby was deeply and destructively in love with Daisy. Fitzgerald felt the same for his love, Zelda. Gatsby was a self-made man. Was Fitzgerald, or was he born into money like most of the other characters?

This is certainly a book that can be analyzed in a million ways, which must be why we all have to read it in high school. I’m glad I re-read it, just like I’m glad I reread “Lord of the Flies,” “The Old Man and the Sea,” and “To Kill a Mockingbird”. On to Frankenstein.

The premise that a dog (a Buddhist dog of course) could be as intelligent and feeling as a human is not new, but it’s freshly presented in this book. However, I felt that the author invented problems for the dog (and his best friend) to solve. Conveniently, they do solve them together with a minimal amount of heartache. The ends are tied up too neatly. That said, Stein entertained me for a day and I liked the book enough to recommend it to my dad.

I think the best fiction is plausible fiction — I never felt immersed in the story as if it could have happened in real life. The carelessness of Ellen’s parents was not believable, in my opinion. There are some poignant vignettes of Ellen’s experiences, such as her relationship with her best friend Anne and Anne’s parents’ adoption of whatever Ellen’s parents thought. Parts of the story reminded me of Amy Tan. First, the main character is a multi-cultural female of Asian descent. Second, both authors intertwine the spiritual and physical world: ghosts of ancestors and ancient gods both frighten and comfort the main character, tying her to the past and verifying her mother’s stories.

Overall, the book was generally entertaining (I had nothing else to read on the airplane) and I enjoyed it as a fast, uncomplicated read.

This book is about Bryson’s trek through large swaths of the Appalachian Trial, with numerous asides regarding this history of the trail. Some of the history was tiresome, but the narrative of his adventures (and his friend Katz) was entertaining and funny. I’ve never backpacked for more than an overnight stay, but this book made me want to go more!

One of my favorite aspects of this novel is Michener’s unwavering narration: he casts a bright, almost surgical light on the human societies that have influenced life on Hawaii. He describes the pagan rituals of the early Polynesians and the church services of the New England missionaries with the same glaring light, without judgement on the “errors” of either. He emphasizes the humanity of each group of immigrants, how we are each stuck in our own paradigms and we can seem so different from one another, but so alike. Each main character Michener introduces operates on his or her own logic, whether Hawaiian, New Englander, Chinese, or Japanese. As reader, I can see where each person “is coming from” and I ached at the cross-cultural frictions that occurred throughout the book.

Despite the difficulties suffered by all (oft-times due to closed-mindedness and inability to see from another’s perspective), the mingling of blood-lines and thought-lines that occured in Hawaii are deeply exciting. The book begins with many disparate groups misunderstanding one another — arguably it was a simpler time when convictions were strongly held you knew where you stood. By the end of the book, the world is much more complicated, requiring people of different ethncities to understand one another and cooperate for the greater good. And while Hawaii has its unique complement of people groups, this book is just a snapshot of a trend occuring throughout the world.

I can see why my grandmother read this very long book twice. I wouldn’t mind starting it all over again myself, now with a knowledge of where the story will end up. Hawaii is a straight-forward book, not a difficult read, yet the reader can still imagine offshoots of the main story that aren’t described. While I’m sad that the book is over, I can take comfort in the very long list of Michener’s other sagas. I am sure this isn’t the last of his books I will read.

It was sort of a no-brainer to pick up the next installment, The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York (Do theyse guys have a thing for long titles?). The book starts much like this post, with a discussion of the fascinating (not really) route Mr. Burr took to get to writing this book. Yawn.

Once the book gets going, there is a lot to like. There are really two stories, one about a perfume created by Jean Claude Ellena, an in-house perfumer with Hermès, and a celebrity perfume created for Sarah Jessica Parker. Mr. Burr highlights the differences between the two, and the difference between the creation of these and other perfumes.

I enjoyed the substantive portions of this book, that is, his descriptions of the creative process, the relationships between celebrities, creative directors, perfumers, and marketers, and the formulae themselves. I was surprised and happy to learn that Ellena designed a fragrance that I own, arguably, my first grown-up perfume, which I received as a gift in the mid-1990s, and which I still love (Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert). That was my favorite part of the book: Burr describes the process of the perfume’s creation and, importantly, it’s exact fragrance characteristics, but he doesn’t name it until he describes how it was picked up by Bulgari. Burr’s written description of the perfume is that accurate — he described the smell of the perfume and I could guess that it was my perfume!

That’s the good news, and now for the bad news. I thought this book was poorly edited.  Who cares if SJP’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) phone went off during a meeting? And who wants to know every single person Mr. Burr encountered during his research? Did he promise everyone he talked to that they would be in his book? And Mr. Burr gets preachy and repetative at times, discussing the debate between “natural” and “synthetic” raw materials more than once. And I only need to read about the scent glands of the musk deer once per book, thank you very much.

Lastly, why did he choose to include and translate so much in French? Sure, a few words here and there to remind the reader that the center of perfume is France, but whole sentences? Discussions on vous versus tu? Pointless for an American reader and it made Mr. Burr come off as better-than-vous.

I will say that Mr. Burr’s predilection for name-dropping did help the book in one instance, when he describes the role Peter Hess, SJP’s agent, played in finding a company to back Sarah Jessica’s wish to create a perfume. Unfortunately, this comes off as a side note, and not well integrated with the rest of the story.

Is it a pun if I say a book describing perfume formulae is formulaic? In The Emperor of Scent, Mr. Burr followed Turin around, and in this book, he follows Ellena and SJP around. In the former book he describes his subject; in the latter, he describes his relationship to his subjects. He packs in too much frivolous detail, in my opinion. The Perfect Scent is like a “Best New Artist’s” sophomore attempt (the album they make after the album that made them famous). They try really hard, they get to work with famous people, they write more than they could have the first time, but it comes off as sloppy and lacking the originality of the first.  I felt the same way about The Secret Life of Lobsters and The Zen of Fish by Trevor Corson. I’m glad to read a new book by a good author, but I’m left somewhat disappointed.