The Velveteen Rabbit

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (Author), David Jorgensen (Illustrator), adapted by Mark Sottnick

A stuffed rabbit is beloved by a boy. The boy tells people the rabbit is "real". The rabbit loves being real. However, he sees some real rabbits one day who tell him he is not real. He wonders about that. Later, the boy gets scarlet fever. After he recovers, the doctor says everything close to him (including the bunny) needs to be burned. Luckily, the fairy comes in and makes the rabbit a real bunny.

This is a classic tale that does show its age. There were "spring loaded" toys in the day rather than the electronic ones of today. The text is a bit verbose, but the story still works. There is a small note that it was adapted for a video version. The adapter gets a small credit - and the copyright date is 1985 rather than the original one from a century ago. Hmmm..

The Man Who Knew Too Much

The Man Who Knew Too Much by G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Knew Too Much predates the Hitchcock movie, but has nothing to do with it. It is a collection of mystery short stories that are mostly connected. It almost feels like a regular novel with a number of episodes. The structure is fairly similar to the "Father Brown" stories by Chesterton, tough without Brown.

The Problem of China

Over 100 years ago, Bertrand Russell spent some time in China. He wrote about his observations and the implications for the western world. He understood that China had an advanced civilization that developed in a way different from the west. Both the United States and Europe had their own world view that they viewed to be superior to others. This view led to significant misunderstanding of both China and Asia. He hoped that China would learn from the experiences of the west and adopt the good while eschewing the problematic. Today, that seems so naive. China today has adopted both the good and the bad from the west, in many cases out-westing the west.

Some of the discussions in the book are quite interesting today. This was written before the Maoist experiment in China. Sun Yat Sen barely appears. China was still more concerned with the Japanese. The country was barely developed with some small railway lines. What would Russell have thought of the China of today with miles and miles of high speed rail? 

Russian Bolshevism was viewed as something that could not be adopted in China due in part to the culture and independence. There seems to be some truth to this. Even though China did adopt communism, it has had a very independent, capitalistic flair. The government is centralized, yet there is a significant degree of provincial autonomy.

It is fascinating to see how much Russell got right about China 100 years ago. Even the parts that he seemed to miss often had a kernel of truth. In spite of this work, the west has struggled understanding China for the past century. 

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a curious case of a short story that provided an interesting idea to "inspire" a movie. In the store, Benjamin Button is born an old man, and ages in reverse until he exits a young baby. In the story, his "physical" age matches his intellect and emotional age. He retains some memories and desires from his "past", but still behaves much as a 20 year old would when he looks to be 20. The movie adds a new twist, with his mind aging independently. Thus he looks to be an old man, but has the mind of a young child. This allows some interesting exploration that is not present in the original story. Both do present an interesting exploration of the impact of our "age" in our life and our choices. There are many expectations of people based on the age they look. People are also quick to judge and also quick to forget. The story is also, somewhat symptomatic of its time, highly male focussed. Though a mother does birth Benjamin, she is nowhere to be seen. His wife also is there just to be courted and then plays very little role (other than to be a person that is no longer attractive to him as he gets younger.)
The collection from Blackstone audio also included a few other Fitzgerald Short stories: The lost decade, Three hours between planes, The bridal party, Babylon revisited. These tended to focus on socialites and their experiences.

Four Stories by Kafka

On his deathbead, Kafka implored his friend, Max Brod, to burn all of his incomplete manuscripts. Alas, he failed to do so, and thus preserved many of his unfinished novels. Unfortunately, the quality of these pales in comparison to his stories.

In this collection, all the stories were published or prepared for publication during Kafka's lifetime. They, like the Metamorphosis are well done, coherent works. The posthumous novels (The Castle, Amerika and The Trial) all have their moments, but are just not as good as his "completed" works.

The four stories in this collection have the Kafka touch of having a bit of "absurdity" in the realm of commonality.

"A Hunger Artist"(1922)  tells the story of an artist that performs fasting feets. He is upset that he must stop after 40 days, but is resigned to his lot. Suddenly, the market for hunger artists dies off and he is relegated to a cage in the circus. He eventually completes a record fast, but nobody notices.

"A Report to a Academy" (1917)  is told in the first person by an ape who "became human". He realized that by adopting man's vices he can be seen as a man and achieve greater freedom.

"A Country Doctor" (1918) is about a doctor who's horse dies. A groom appears in the pigsty with horses that bring him instantly to a boys house. There the people treat a doctor as a near-religious figure expecting him either to cause the boy to live or be killed himself. He escapes, but the horses are now in no hurry.

"A Little Woman" (1924) is the story of a relationship that may exist or may not.

A multitude of meanings could be read in to each of the stories. However, the beauty is that they can also be taken at face value as a fun, enjoyable story.

Siddhartha

Siddhartha is a tale of an Indian who finds his inner peace within nature itself. He spends almost all of his life in the quest for personal enlightenment. In the process, he suffers through many of the ups and downs of life. He becomes addicted to high stakes gambling as a result of trying to show that money has no value. He is such a caring, loving father that his son runs away (because he wanted more 'discipline') He spends time in pursuit of pleasure, while at other times eschewing it all. In the end, he finds much insight from the simple people. He decides that talk and thought are hindrances to his enlightenment as he finally reaches old age truly happy.

The book is fairly short and readable. The main message that Siddhartha has in the end is that the knowledge and enlightenment is best found when one is not looking for it. By looking, one puts on blinders that put the focus on certain things. By being open to everything around, the happiness can be found in what really exists.