A new garbage man sees so much interesting stuff on his route. Rather than put in the back to get hauled off, he puts it on top so it can be reused. At the end of the route people take all the stuff he had saved. However, the next day, all that stuff is back out with notes. It wasn't as reusable as they thought. That day it all gets hauled away to the dump. It is a story about naive ideals that don't quite come through.
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak translated by Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear
Doctor Zhivago was a doctor that lived in Russia around the time of great change. There is a lot of talk of the Russian revolution and the onset of war. The Doctor seemed to attend to people and write poetry and concern himself with religion. There were allusions to religious teachings as part of his thinking about things. I wasn't quite sure what the point of everything was. It did seem like he had some wealth and was stuck in some internal conflicts. The novel was first published in Italy because the communist leadership did not want it published.
Curious George (1941)
Curious George Takes a Job (1947)
Curious George Rides a Bike (1952)
Curious George Gets a Medal (1957)
Curious George Flies a Kite (1958)
Curious George Learns the Alphabet (1963)
Curious George Goes to the Hospital (1966)
This collection has all the original Curious George books. They are of a higher quality than the newer stories by other authors. They also have various elements that would not be considered appropriate today. In the first book, George is found by the Man with the Yellow Hat in Africa. He smokes a pipe and then eagerly goes to the zoo. In all the books, George gets in trouble in various ways due to his curiosity. However, he always manages to get out of the trouble - often by using some of the same skills that got him in trouble in the first place.
These stories are quite old. Some look data. In Curious George Gets a Medal, George is the first animal to bail out of a rocket in space. This was before the space program had really taken off. In others, they just show a time of the past. In Curious George Rides a Bike, George gets a bike that he rides around. He later takes over a friends paper route, breaks his bike, and then joins an animal circus. He gets banished from the circus, then rescues a bear and gets to join. Everyone in the town knows each other and forgives him for not delivering their papers.
While he sometimes seems to be in a bucolic small town, other times he is in the middle of a big city. However, everyone still seems to know each other.
The collection includes CDs that include the audiobook versions of the stories. These include background music for almost the entire time.
The "Learns the Alphabet" was my least favorite. It seemed to be too slow and the pictures formed with letters was forced. For my favorite, I'd pick the first, though the early ones were all good.
The Cat in the Hat is a classic that works. The meter and rhyme are very well executed. The vocabulary is simple, yet the story is rich. Beginning readers can easily make it through much of the book. The book also launched the careers of Thing One and Thing Two. The two kids are bored at home during a rainy day. The Cat in the Hat comes to introduce fun. The fish doesn't like it at all, but the kids are willing to go along. However, things get very well out of hand and a huge mess ensues. The cat is able to quickly clean things up with his "cleaning up machine" just before mom gets home. Do they kids tell their mom about it?
The Merchant of Prato: Francesco di Marco Datini, 1335-1410 by Iris Origo
An Italian merchant kept detailed records of his life and business activities. The author of this book researched those records to assemble a record of his life and living in early renaissance Italy. Business was fairly developed at the time. He had various life activities that looked similar to today. There were also aspects of life that looked quite different. There were various machinations done to remain in compliance with the church requirements. Healthcare and scientific understanding were quite different. We know details about his life because his books and writings were uncovered a half-millennium after he hid them away. The "worthless" records have become a valuable historical record.
The Enchanter by Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov wrote The Enchanter in Russian while living in Paris. It was among his last works written in Russian. The novella is somewhat similar to Lolita, but much more disturbing. A man is attracted to a teen girl. He marries her mother. The mother dies. Now the man has custody of the girl. They have a flirtatious, relationship. He fantasizes about taking the relationship to the next level and attempts to make a move one night when she is sleeping. She wakes up and starts to scream. He realizes how evil he has and runs away to attempt to destroy himself.
The book takes place primarily in an industrialized, fictionalized version of the United States. There are a large number of companies competing against each other in various industries. Some companies have faltered, while others have grown. The "losers" have worked with the government to help protect their interests. Regulations and cartels are meant to prevent some companies from getting too big and ensuring that everyone has equal opportunity. There are even some individual factories that attempt pure "communism", with everyone getting paid what they need. Alas, this regulation just makes things worse. Companies find it is easier to get cozy with regulators than to provide viable goods and services. Colorado proves to be the exception, with businesses flocking there. However, the regulators put an end to that with taxes and regulation. Eventually, regulation gets out of hand, with companies "frozen" at their current levels and guaranteeing everyone jobs. There is little incentive to work. The only real responsibility people have is ensuring that they can't be blamed if something bad happens. The country is falling apart.
The heroes of the book are industrial magnates. Dagny Taggart knows how to run a railroad. Henry Reardon has created stronger, lighter steel alloy. Neither try to curry favor with politicians and are greatly persecuted. There are many others. Through the first two "books" of this book, characters often ask "Who is John Galt?" In the third book, we finally meet him.
The first two books present an indictment of the lazy "rent seekers" People that innovate and work hard help to improve the world. There are many lower-level employees that do the best they can at their jobs. There are also many others that are just collecting a paycheck. At the top, there are plenty of company leaders that do all they can to avoid blame rather than make difficult decisions. Communism in deed (if not name) is condemned due to the corruption it engenders. Sure, there are parts that sound good. However, in practice, it is a system that is easily manipulated by corrupt rulers. Corruption brings down almost all of society. A leftist reading of the book could easily read this as an example of a failed implementation of a system. (You could even argue it is a failure of fascism, as the "oligarchs" of industry are in cahoots with the government.) The "corrupt" bureaucrats are very similar to what we often see in society today. Seattle Public Schools seems to be the perfect epitome of the corruption in the book. The leadership does a great job of "saying nothing". There never seems to be somebody that takes responsibility for anything challenging. If things do get difficult, they just through out the word "equity" to try to bring down any opposing argument.
In the third book, we are introduced to John Galt's mountain utopia. Here all of the most creative leaders are living in peace and harmony. They can be greedy, yet still willing to do menial jobs to build up their local community. The titans of industry decamp to the wilderness to become hippies.
The book then proceeds to really go off the deep end. Everything is falling apart in society. However, the government does manage to build a highly destructive "Sound bomb." (This will eventually destroy the one railway bridge across the Mississippi.) The South American governments attempt to nationalize a copper mining multinational. However, right before the takeover is announced, all the mines and equipment are destroyed and all money is gone from all accounts. (But not until after all workers have been paid.) Things are looking really bad. To reassure the population a big speech is announced. However, right before the speech is to take place, John Galt takes over the airwaves and gives a three hour speech on the Ayn Rand's objectivism philosophy and the "leader strike". (This actually lasts three hours in the regular speed audiobook!) The speech blathers on and on and on. After the speech, the nation further falls apart. The government tries to track down Galt and get him to "fix" the economy. His suggestion is to back off. They won't do that. The nation further disintegrates. Galt's friends stage a commando raid to rescue him and go off to their Utopia.
Atlas Shrugged has some good ideas. It also has a lot of long-winded nonsense. Rand's philosophy seems to be taken up by libertarian leaders of industry. Yet John Galt spends most of his time as a regular laborer. He works hard at what he does, and doesn't aspire for more. Like in the Fountainhead, Rand shows respect for people that are willing to put their entire mind and effort into manual labor. The industry leaders that focus on providing a valuable service for people and the economy are also respected. The "greedy" bureaucrats that merely want to maximize profitability are pilorried.
The philosophy from the characters can be summed up as: "Work hard. Be true to yourself. Do what you feel is best. Don't try to dictate what other people should do." As part of this, you should seek out more knowledge to better understand what is best and be willing to change. Just because everyone else thinks it is right does not mean it is so. The book is very critical of both big companies and big government. Both are a drain on the economy when they focus on bureaucracy and status quo rather than societal improvements. Rand also has an interesting take on morality and religion. Characters engage in multiple marriages and affairs. Many will retain a marriage while knowing an affair is happening. Others use it as a means to stop. Religion seems to be a non-entity in her works. Both morality and religion are 'non-entities' in a world where people are focussing on their own personal gain.
Take out the third book and the philosophy that is indirectly expressed is fairly convincing. There is a strong condemnations of those that "mooch" on others. People can fall into systems because they expect to receive excess benefit. However, they don't realize that they could also be the one sacrificing their excess. The third book tries to drill home this and many other points. It reaches too far and adds too much to be believable. The in your face philosophising brings it down even further. The novel that starts out with a bunch of autistic industrial leaders ends with unbelievable superheroes living happily ever after.
The Door Into Summer was written in 1957 and set in 1970 and 2000. As such, it provides an interesting view of how much was predicted "wrong". About the future. We don't have zero-gravity entertainment, self lighting cigarettes, or widespread robot servants. We also haven't licked the common cold or had a large "cold war" holocaust. However, we do have newspapers that can be read electronically on a tablet (alas, those were more 2010 than 2000.) Computer Aided Design was somewhat foreshadowed, though it was more advanced than what was predicted in the novel. Changes in retail, telecommunications and computers were all significantly underestimated.
This audiobook had three "classic" science fiction novels. It is interesting reading these old books, and occasionally hearing fantastic events that take place in what is now the past. Even though they portray fantastic, futuristic events, they are clearly dated in the era when they were written.
