So we have a new year. 2015. Hopefully this year will bring us great new changes in our lives, great experiences to live through, and great persons to love. Hopefully this year will bring us through many more of the 100 greatest novels. Let us go ahead and get us started with the first two of this year. I’ll try to get more to you soon.
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
If you’re looking for a strong, driving plot full of loveably (or hate-able) characters, this novel isn’t for you. If you’re looking for a thought-provoking novel to make you feel like you might not be the only person who really isn’t sure who you are and what you should be doing, than I highly recommend this. Following Binx Bolling throughout New Orleans in the 1950s, this novel watches the protagonist struggle with alienation from his life possibly because of his memories from the Korean War and his alienation from his family because of their multiple problems. Some of his family members are dealing with mental illness, other with physical disabilities, and even a few with the breakup of their relationships. And Binx Bolling is supposed to be the anchor that everybody holds on to. And yet, he doesn’t want to be or is not able to be anything for anybody since he’s struggling with his search for who he is, his search for his inner self. And if the reader cannot find any connections to them, well, they might just be stuck in the everydayness of their own life. At least that’s what Binx Bolling says and I tend to agree with him.
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
I really, really enjoyed reading this novel. I have never read any novel in this setting and really gave opportunity for some great writing. The story is about a French Catholic bishop and a French priest who are trying to establish a diocese in the newly created New Mexico territory in the mid 1800s. The area is religiously controlled by either Spanish missionaries left over from Spain’s attempt to conquer and convert the area or by local Native American tribes and their religious and cultural ways. The bishop and the priest meet really interesting characters as they go around dealing with the Mexican people, the Native tribes, and the Spanish clergy. A lot of their time and effort is spent trying to convince these people to give up some old traditions for more European ways of doing things. I don’t really know what about this novel makes for such an enthralling read. There’s no love story, no intense story lines with twists and surprises. But throughout the novel you learn to love the two dudes and really appreciate the care and love they have for the people of this strange, new land that they were sent to live with. And what makes it even better is this novel is actually based on the life of the real first Archbishop of Santa Fe, Jean-Baptiste Lamy.
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There you have it. Two more. And I would like to think the wait for the next two won’t be very long.
