Book Summaries
Herman Melville's epic about the search for the great White Whale show the battle between a monomaniac Captain Ahab and his hatred of the whale which bit off his leg. The story begins with the friendship of a wandering man named Ishmael and his unlikely friend, the head-hunting Queequeg. These two men decide to seek their fortunes at sea on a vessel named the Pequod under the leadership of a mysterious captain. The crew discovers shortly after going to see that the Captain's goal is the murder of his swron enemy, the White Whale. The crew decides to embark with their Captain on a quest for the whale's demise which actually only finishes the crew.
MAUS.Art Speigelman. New York: Pantheon Books,1986.
This comic book is Art Speigelman's depiction of his father's experience as a Jew in Nazi Germany and as a survivor trying to interact in the world after the camps. To get time with his son, Vladeg Spegelman tells his story of the progression from complete freedom to imminent death in Nazi Germany. Vladeg explains how the rights and freedoms of the Jews were systematically taken away and the lies that pervaded from the Nazi government to cover the truth. Vladeg tells of how he and his wife Anja narrowly escaped death from disease, horrible living conditions, and execution several times. The psychological and physical toughness which got Vladeg through the hell of Auschwitz is also seen in the difficulties Vladeg has in dealing with Art and the modern, tamer world of 1970's and 1980's America. Vladeg is stubborn and easy to anger with the people around him but does not see the toxicity of his behavoir. Art uses this story to understand the horrors of Auschwitz and the horrible repercusions on a man he must love.
Ceremony. Leslie Marmon Silko. New York: The Viking Press, 1977.
This novel by Leslie Marmon Silko tells the story of a man returning from World War II with a horrible illness. Tayo vomits everything he puts in his mouth, and everyone is very worried that he will never get over what is also affecting his brain. Tayo was born in shame from an Indian mother who had slept with a white man. Tayo has to wrestle with his personal identity crisis of being from two ethnic cultures but not being accepted in either as well as the issues of his horrible service in the war. He eventually must come to understand his many experiences through the ceremony of his Indian culture and the power of ultimate destruction that his American life now controls.