Number 4

     It is really hard to believe that this list is only four away from the top spot....I know the anticipation is almost as strong as it is when one waits for the ketchup to come out of the glass bottle. So here we go with

Number 4!

   I am so sorry that I have to do this to you, but making this list has been so hard on me and the books I claim to like so much. It makes me feel like I am constantly doing this:

or this:

with a number of my so called favorite books. The bookcases sit right across from my bed and every night it seems that I can't look some of them in the eye. So, to heal some wounds and straighten some spines (caution = library joke!). The book (s) that make it into my Number 4 spot in this Top Ten List are:

And:

   Both of these books come from men who were considered or are considered "great writers". They both wrote a large amount of material and left behind even more that wasn't published during their lifetimes. Most of you probably know more about these authors than I do. I read both of these books when I was in high school, but reread them once I graduated from college and have read both of them in the last 5 years again; one of them again last month.
    To me, both of these books are the same in one important way. I love to write, but have much to learn and am in no way an authority on writing or writers, but to me these books say all that both of these authors tried to say in all they ever wrote, but in them, they said it the best that they were ever able to say it (write it). Both of these books are short in comparison to the other works of the specific authors. They are both a little over a hundred pages long. Both of them do not waste words. They are both very simplistic stories on the surface. Both of them are taught in high school, which sadly turns both of these books off for a lot students. (Much more of this later courtesy of Harold Bloom)

   I do not need to retell for you the story that is found in, The Old Man and the Sea, because you have read the book or watched the movie, but will help you remember it. In short, it is the story of an old man and a young boy who are both fisherman by trade; one of them at the beginning of his vocation and one at the end. The old man goes out to fish and catches the largest fish ever caught by any fisherman that has ever been in the village he is from. He struggles to bring in this fish till his hands are bleeding. He spends days and days fighting to bring this fish in and then making it back to land with this fish. Sharks eat most of the fish before he can get back to land because it is bigger than his boat and he doesn't have the strength to bring it into his boat. He comes back and is no longer a joke to everyone, but goes away to die in sadness and alone. I have cried numerous times because of this story because it is such a good and wonderfully written story. I am not a big fan of Ernest Hemingway. His macho-driven male characters are too much for me, but this story is not that. It is simple. It is honest. It is brutal. It is beauty. It is to me about life's struggles. I could read this book once a year and still get something from it. The number one reason why I love this book is because of that. To me, there are not too many books that deserve a second, sometimes a first, reading, but this is not one of them. I learn something new about myself every time I read it.

   To me, the Old Man and the Sea, is a sad picture of life. We spend our how lives killing the most important and most beautiful thing about life and that is Life itself, but we do not realize it until we at last reel it in and struggle to bring it home and end up having nothing left except the bare bones and scales of it and it is too late to go back. It is a story about time and how quickly it fades and how we will miss the beauty by trying to live, but there is no escape from it. Yes, it would have been great if Santiago found in hope in Christ, but I have done my best not to Christianize any of the purely fictional books, but feel that even Hemingway would mind us seeing this as long as we let him drink and fish.
 
   The other book that ties for 4th in my list is, Of Mine and Men. I like the book immensely and like it more and more after each reading. In short, it is the story of George and Lennie, two harvest tramps, that travel around together and work on farms until the work is through and then move to the next. George is small and smart and Lennie is very large, but is handicapped mentally. They have hatched a plan where they will earn enough money to buy a small farm and work their own piece of land and be their own bosses (a little bit of the American Dream). Lennie loves to hear this plan as often as he can and George pretends to hate telling him about it, but in all actuality, it is the Hope that gets them both through their slavish existence. Part of this plan includes Lennie being allowed to take care of some rabbits. Lennie is forever doing something very bad without realizing it due to his mentally incapacities and George is always having to rescue him and them. He hates Lennie for this, but is scared (he doesn't admit this) to be truly alone in this world. The story begins with them fleeing the scene of something terrible Lennie has done and George plans one last job for them to work in order to get the necessary funds to buy this dream place. Everyone knows the rest. You had to read it in the 9th-11th grade probably. You probably hated it. I am so sorry. While they are on this new place to work, Lennie accidentally tells their dream plan to a couple other guys who are hopeless and it ends up becoming a story that they too begin dreaming and hoping in. A long story short, Lennie ends up killing the ranches' owner's son's wife by mistake. They want Lennie's blood, but George instead has to run him down and protect him from them. I won't tell you exactly how it ends because you already know, but it ends wonderfully and tragically all at the same time. It is really to sad almost to write about.

  This story is our story. Humanity's story without Christ. No, I am sure Steinbeck did not want us to get this out of the text and it is not really there, but that is what I get out of it. Without Christ, we have so many things to hope in, but in the end, we are Lennie, and ruin that hope and remain once again, hopeless. This book is well-written. It is simple. It is complex. It is about Hope. It is about friendship. It is about humanity. Read this book.

Sorry for the longer post,
David