Reading 2008

[bagheera_san]

1. The Time-Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
2. Gregorius by Hartman v. Aue
3. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
4. The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
5. The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud
6. Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
7. Der Verdacht by F. Dürrenmatt
8. Doktor Faustus by Thomas Mann
9. Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
10. Storm Front by Jim Butcher
11. England, England by Julian Barnes
12. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
13. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
14. Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
15. The Idiot by Dostoevsky
16. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
17. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
18. Grave Peril by Jim Butcher
19. Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik
20. Summer Knight by Jim Butcher
21. Death Masks by Jim Butcher
22. Blood Rites by Jim Butcher
23. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
24. Dead Beat by Jim Butcher
25. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
26. Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher
27. White Night by Jim Butcher
28. Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist
29. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
30. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

31. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Plot: Charlie Gordon, a 30 year old mentally disabled man, is offered the chance to participate in an experiment that will raise his IQ. Like the mouse Algernon, Charlie turns into a genius within months. But Charlie also turns from an eager, optimistic, child-like person into a frightened cynic who realises that all his life, he has been ridiculed, belittled and abused even by his friends and parents, and now he is still no more than a guinea pig. At a scientific convention, he frees Algernon and runs away with him - to grow up, to discover himself, and whether the change is permanent, or whether he will slip back and lose the intelligence he has gained.

I listened to it as an audiobook. 9 hours in 3 days, and at the end I lay in my bed in the dark and sobbed. This novel is wonderful. It touches the heart of so many human... things. It's one of those novels wherein you recognise so many basic human feelings that it feels like déjà vu, like you've read this book already, a long time ago. It poses an ethical problem with no easy solution, and it's fair to everyone - neither pessimistic nor optimistic. It's what Plato's Cave allegory would be if it were a brilliant tragedy.