Monday, August 05, 2013

Do You READ All Them Books?

This weekend I read an entire book.  I don't know the last time I did that, just sat down and read a book and got all sucked into it and couldn't put it down.

It was Ender's Game, and I'm not going to go into the controversy about Orson Scott Card and his anti-gay stupidity because #1, the book was written almost 30 years ago and why was no one caring THEN, #2 the man is a Mormon and they're not exactly known for their gay-friendly outlook, and #3 it was a REALLY good book, and had zilch to say about marriage or sexuality at all.  It's a book about children..  Now I'm not saying that I'd look at paintings by Hitler and go, "Yeah, he killed all those Jews and started a horrible war and stuff but that's a REALLY good painting!"  Those would be hard to separate.  But this book?  This book was great.
I wondered a couple of things as I was reading.  The book starts when Ender is six years old and ends when he's around 20.  But it's definitely not a book for children, I guess more in the young adult age range.  I wonder how it would have impacted my life as a teenager.  Would it have impacted my life?  Would I have done anything differently?  Probably not.  It's always interesting to think about how books and other outside influences change you, or if they would have changed you differently if you'd experienced them at a different time in your life.

I also wondered if the book would have grabbed me in the same way had I read it on my Kindle.  Someone loaned me a copy of the paperback.  Would I have been so enthralled if it was the electronic version?  Again, there is no way to know this.  I can't re-read the book for the first time.

Ender's Game is about brilliant kids being trained to become commanders in an intergalactic army going to war against an alien race.  War games.  Strategy.  Survival.  It would be a good read for kids who feel a little different and have outsider status at school or in general.   I remember feeling like that when I was a kid- I didn't really come into my own until I was in my 20s.

I also painted my bathroom cabinets this weekend, and replaced the hardware, but that is another post for another day.  

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