Non-Fiction Fun

Thanks, Tiff, for your posts about the Hurricane and Northern Lights. It saddens me that I don't have time for pleasure reading, and I am looking forward to tackling the growing stack of books on might night table when I am off from school in January.

I'm really enjoying being back in school, and while the first half of the semester included some not so fun books (all 85 of the Federalist Papers, for example), I am really enjoying the books assigned in the second half of my Intro to Public Affairs course.

I've read most of What You Should Know about Politics...But Don't by Jessamyn Conrad. Though not the most sophisticated book (I like to think that Conrad, who is getting her PhD in Art History, wrote this book as a guide to politics for art history majors), it explains all sorts of political issues very well--and to her credit, Conrad does explain the many sides of political issues. The book is not entirely non-partisan, as it claims to be, but it does provide a well-rounded view of what is going on in American political life.

On the "I didn't know America had a eugenics program" front, I am currently about a third of the way through of War Against the Weak by Edwin Black. So far, it is incredibly fascinating. I had no idea that Germany learned about eugenics from the US! And with all of the debate over "human engineering" (did anyone see this week's Private Practice), the books feels incredibly relevant. I'll post more when I am done, but if you enjoy history, this is a good one.

The 16th Round by Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

We were supposed to read this book as the first in our "novel to film" round, but as luck would have it (or rather, lack of luck), none of us could get our hands on a copy in time, so we moved on to the next book on the list. I was still interested in reading this book, however, so I kept it on my library queue and read it after I was done with the bookclub book of the month.

I had seen the film with Denzel Washington, so I was vaguely familiar with Carter's story, but after now having read the novel, I see that the film definitely left out a lot of the events of his life in order to make a more sympathetic character out of Carter. You don't see Denzel Washington mugging people (or at least that I can remember...I'm going to netflix it so that I can refresh my memory...)

Considering that the novel is a memoir more than a biography, I couldn't help but question some of the things that Carter tells us. I'm not saying that I don't believe Carter's story to a certain extent because I know that racism plays an big part in the relations between many different ethnicities, but it seems that every time something happens to him, he blames it on the prejudice of others. He never seems to take responsibility for his own behavior (which includes mugging and robbing people) and instead tries to justify his actions by constantly reminding you of the circumstances of what most, if not all, Black people during that time were going through. Not everyone made the same choices that he did.

As for the murders that he was given the life sentences for, I believe him when he says that he didn't commit those crimes, if only because his life seemed to be going in a completely different direction than most of his life was heading and he seems to be on the right path. Married with a child on the way, a career that was flourishing...he'd have had to be an idiot to mess that up.

I found the novel to be an interesting read (especially since my dad grew up in Paterson and my grandmother still lives there...I was even able to picture some of the places that Carter mentions) and I was definitely intrigued by Carter, but I don't think that I ever allowed myself to truly open up to Carter. Perhaps that was because I never felt like he was able to truly open up to us...his audience.

Has anyone else read this novel? What were your thoughts? Do you think that Carter was able to give an objective view of his own life?