Pollyanna Collection: Pollyanna and Pollyanna Grows Up

Pollyanna Collection: Pollyanna and Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor H. Porter

This version of the first two Pollyanna books credits one of the same narrators from Librivox. I wonder if they just lifted it and cleaned out the librivox credits. Or maybe the narrator redid it. It is nowhere to be found on Amazon, though they do have the first two Pollyanna books separately. They both deal with the "glad" game. Pollyanna finds the good in everything and makes everyone happy.

Pollyanna

Pollyanna is the eternal optimist. Her parents have died and she has gone to live with her aunt (who does not like children.) Pollyanna sees everything positively. She even thanks her aunt for the punishments received. She befriends other people around town, including the man that will not talk to anybody. She brightens up everyone's day. Near the end, she gets into an accident and breaks her leg. One doctor says she will never walk again. This causes her to enter a funk where she can't think of positive things. Everyone in the town rallies around her and talks about how she had helped them and tries to help her. She gets out of the funk and then learns that she may be able to work. It is a very positive book.

Pollyanna Grows Up

Pollyanna goes to live with a rich lady in Boston while her Aunt travels. She struggles with the closed nature of the people in the city. However, she makes friends with some of the "street kids", much to the chagrin of the lady of the house. One day, she takes the lady to visit a cripple in a tenement. The rich lady wonders if this is her lost nephew. She also sees that the house is in poor condition and then seems to realize that she is the owner. She makes sure it is good. She later asks to adopt the boy because she thinks it might be her relation. He refuses because she doesn't truly care for him. Later she begins to care more for the poor kids and their abilities and he allows her to be adopted. Many years later, Pollyanna's aunt has come on hard times. They end up letting the rich lady and some kids board. There are some love triangles and pride of the crippled boy. Pollyanna's aunt refuses to let Pollyanna mary the boy she likes because he has an unknown pedigree. However, he opens documents to find he is the long lost nephew of the rich lady. It ends with a number of engagements and marriages.

Swann's Way

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

This is the first of the Remembrance of Things Past book (also translated as In search of Lost Time) cycle. It is a fairly long book, but only the first of the cycle. People think and dream and talk about who they want to associated with and drink Vichy water. It is a famous work. I found myself quite lost. I would seem to capturer what is going on, then it would shift elsewhere. There is a lot of talk about walking around different places. An abridgement would be useful.

In Search of Lost Time (Dramatized)

In Search of Lost Time is an extremely long, multi-volume novel. This dramatization distills it down to a few hours. It seems to focus on the romantic endeavors. It was not very engaging. Maybe it isn't worth going through the long original.

Return of Tarzan, Beasts of Tarzan, Son of Tarzan

Return of Tarzan, Beasts of Tarzan, Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rixe Burroughs

[july 2009] Return of Tarzan is great escapist entertainment. Though it stands alone as a story, it is best to read after reading the first book (Tarzan of the Apes). The book reads like any entertaining summer movie, and has enough plot elements to fill at least a dozen films. Tarzan finds himself a french secret agent, an "Indiana Jones" gold hunter, an African King, and of course an "Ape Man". In all, he seems to posses just enough 'superhuman' ability and uncanny luck to get out of the most dire predicament.

The story is always quick paced, and exposes the early 20th century view of "Western European superiority" while at the same time being sympathetic to many of the "savages".

Beasts of Tarzan, the third Tarzan book, starts out with Tarzan settled in to English life. Of course, its not too long before he finds himself in the jungle again, this time accompanied by a motley crew of jungle animals. This book was not as good as the first two, though it was still quite entertaining. It also seemed to be a little shorter. The best image I remember from this is the thought of a boat with apes and a panther cruising through the water.

"Son of Tarzan" hardly has Tarzan in it at all. Instead it focuses on his boy as he grows from a tween to a married man - spending most of that time in the African jungle. This is a great book, and the "love story" between Korak and Meriem is touching, and is better developed the that between Tarzan and Jane in the initial books. The book does, however, seem to have some of the more violent moments. Perhaps my only complaint was that the book seemed to drag on a bit at the end. Two-thirds of the way through it becomes fairly clear what is going to happen, however, a number of plot twists are thrown in there, dragging out the novel.
What I also find interesting is that the novels seem to be filled with many elements that I've seen in movies that have come out well after the Tarzan books. It seems that the influence of the books has been well felt in hollywood (even if not in the Tarzan movies themselves.)
In the copy I have, page 208 ends in the middle of a word, while 209 starts a new paragraph. The story seems to still flow properly, but I'm wondering what is missing from the "printers error".