L'Amour: The Lonesome Gods, finished

Okay, I finished it.

Yeah, it was a heck of a lot more exciting in the end than it was in the beginning.  Did you finish it?  What do you think?

I was overwhelmed with the amount of enemies coming from every direction, actually.  I was like how can one person who is not Monsanto have that many people hate them at once?  It was a bit trying emotionally.  But then again, I get stressed out when Ariel (the little mermaid) is up on land and I'm thinking her father is going to kind of wonder where she is for three days and she is going to be totally busted.  Won't he notice she's gone?  How can that even be pulled off?  But I digress.

So, obviously, that.  But besides that, I was pleased with how Tia Elena and Miss Nesslerode developed their character and weren't afraid of the crazy guys.  After I finished the book, I said to myself, "Well, I guess things probably haven't changed too much in any of the big cities.  People are still getting killed multiple times a day.  Like he said, people from ancient times have been clubbing each other over the head with rocks and who knows what, so why would we be shocked it is still going on?"  Now people just do it the quicker and less-painful way by letting off some bullets.

When I got to the end of the book, I read (in my version) that Louis L'Amour lived a life that was similar to Johannes.  Now THIS was impressive.  The story, while some parts were a little out of the ordinary, seemed mostly believable (except for the giant uncle living in the mountains and him finding the black stallion out in the middle of the desert - teensy bit unlikely, but at least humanly possible.).  But when I heard this was essentially a fictionally derived version of his life, I was totally impressed with this guy.  He had been all over the world and learned martial arts, and did plenty of other crazy things, not to mention having about 10 different jobs.  So, I liked the author more at the end than I did upon starting.

Quite frankly, I'm not really into Native American spirituality (no offense anyone), just not on my top ten list.  That came through quite a bit in the story (throwing the rocks on the piles as he passed) and it seemed he was attributing his "luck" to the now lonesome gods watching over him.  I did like how he continually emphasized to try to think calmly and rationally under stress and the repeated appearance of confidence via slow breathing and his creative bluffs.

Meghan, although she may come off to some as brave, seemed to be more foolish and easily-swayed to me and I disliked her because of her stupidity in those areas.  Her redeeming quality of beauty, although beneficial, seemed a little wasted on her.  I was glad for things to turn around for her and for her to get a brain in the end and to see that she had enough cojones (yeah, not literally) to shoot that dude when he was going to attack her.

I was bothered that Uncle Al died without meeting Johannes.  I thought that would have brought some good closure to them both, especially being that they were family and neither one of them had much of that.  But alas, I am not the author, so it is what it is.

I am not that far out of it, so those are just my first impressions upon finishing it.  Not very deep, just stuff I was thinking about.

Anything you want to say about it?  Was it believable or too far-fetched for you?  Which characters did you like best?  Were you surprised Miss Nesselrode was from Russia?  

That's all for me for now.  Keep reading!
Ms. Daisy

Lonesome Gods, Louis L'Amour

I am currently reading Lonesome Gods by Louis L'Amour.  It was something my dear friend started reading and said it was so good that I wanted to read it too.  (She's awesome, by the way.  But duh.  Like I would pick un-awesome friends!)

The basic deal is this is a sort of western novel.  I've never read a western novel before and when she said it was, I was kind of put off by it.  Not my kind of thing, really.  But it is a classic.  She said not to worry because it was very good and L'Amour is an excellent writer who has a knack for nature and incorporating it into his writing.

So I bit.

She was right.  She told me the first fifty or so pages were a bit dry.  Yes.  They were.

Then things started to pick up.

The star of the show is this young boy.  When the story starts off, his mother has already died and his father is about to die.  It is set in the west (going to California) in the 1800's.  He's only 6 when we begin the story, but by the things his father teaches him to do, until you find out he's a 6 year-old, you think he's probably 12.

Johannes' (that's the boy) maternal grandfather hates his father enough to be on an at least decade long rager bent on killing him.  Nobody is sure if he'll want to kill Johannes, too (at first - you find out later he quite might).

L'Amour seems to have a fascination with nature, Native American traditions and gods, a belief in evolution and a love for classic authors.  Or at least those seem to be expressed repeatedly throughout this work.

If you get your hands on it, tell me what you think.  I'm at this point only in chapter 28 (out of 61), so I can't give you the full-throttle version yet.

Keep on readin',
Ms. Daisy

A what?

Maybe you like to read.  Maybe not (maybe the last time you did that was in college).  

I do.  If you want, we could read a book together.  You could tell me what you think of it.  Not like an intense thing, like you have to study for a quiz and answer all the questions and write an essay and take a test.  It's like, if you want to read something and you like reading something someone else is reading, well then.  We've got something in common.

So I just thought you could share your thoughts, what kinds of things stand out to you, if you want to get all deep and philosophical but nobody else will listen to your awesome ideas, we will here.

Just an idea.  You don't have to like it or participate in it.  I'll just be reading books anyway.  (Fine!  Go play on your side of the playground!)  But you're invited to do so.

Welcome, lovelies!