Archivists in Ally Condie's Matched Trilogy

As I mentioned before (see post), Ally Condie's Matched Trilogy--Matched, Crossed, and Reached (forthcoming November 2012)--features a group of individuals called the Archivists.

In the series, the Archivists do collect and preserve cultural heritage (in this case what are essentially copies of burned books, etc), it is so that they are able to sell what they have on the black market. They exist on the fringes of society (the only reliable way to find one is to go to the museum, go to the patriotic exhibit, and ask to hear about "the glorious history of [the providence]") and they trade in information and connections as well.

The first mention of the Archivists in the series:

"There are people who call themselves Archivists," Ky says. "Back when the Hundred Committees made their selections, the Archivists knew the works that didn't get selected would be a commodity. So they saved some of them. [...]
"Cassia, the Archivists aren't altruistic. They saw a commodity and they did what they could to preserve it. Anyone can have it who's willing to pay, but their prices are high." (Matched, chapter 25, listened to audio version so I don't have a page number and the quote above may not be exact)

April is National Poetry Month

 

As one can tell from my tag cloud,¹ I don't write about much about poetry.  While I do enjoy and appreciate the occasional poem, I generally find poetry less accessible (to me personally) than prose. But, April is National Poetry Month (gorgeous poster,² no?) and I've been thinking about poetry quite a bit lately (thanks to Ally Condie's Matched trilogy),³ so the time is ripe.

I'll share a poem tomorrow and at least one other every week for the rest of the month. And, maybe this focus will encourage me to read more poetry going forward.  We shall see.

1. Before this post, only 7 were tagged "poetry." Of course there may be more poetry references than I've actually tagged, but it's still quite a small percentage.
2. Designed by Chin-Yee Lai for the Academy of American Poets' National Poetry Month and featuring lines from "Our Valley" by Philip Levine.
3. The Society, the group that governs the repressive future society depicted in the series, decided to "eliminate distractions such as excess poetry and music while retaining an optimal amount to enhance culture and satiate the desire for experiencing art" (Crossed, 107). Committees were formed, one for each area of the arts, and directed to choose the one hundred examples of each art that would be saved. The series takes place decades after this selection (the teenage protagonist's grandmother was a member of the Hundred Poems committee) and two of the discarded (banned) poems are integral to the plots of Matched and Crossed, Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" and Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" respectively.

quick thoughts on a few recent reads (all from the public library)

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

An e-audiobook from the library. (Ebooks I can probably take or leave, but e-audiobooks I love).

The Chosen One is a work of contemporary fiction aimed at the young adult-audience. Set in a polygamist community and dealing with the abuse and abuse of power rampant within it, The Chosen One reads like a made-for-TV movie.

A bookmobile features prominently in the story. However the novel's 13-year-old narrator and protagonist insisted on referring to it nine times out of ten as "the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels," which was endearing at first, but quickly became irritating.

Crossed by Ally Condie

I read, but never posted about Matched, the book to which Crossed is a sequel. I hadn't planned to read Matched, one of 2010's mass of dystopian YA releases, after reading another to those releases (Delirium by Lauren Oliver, see post) that featured a society with Society-determined marriages, but it happened to be available for download on a day that I was browsing the library's e-audio offering so I checked it out. Since most of my preference predictions about that crop of books were wrong,¹ it should come as no surprise that I liked Matched.

The authoritarian society depicted in both Matched and Crossed is more complex than those in some of the other dystopian releases (yeah!), much more so that I expected, and its depth is revealed slowly to both protagonist and reader. The series also features a group of individuals referred to as the Archivists (expect a post on that in the near future).

I didn't enjoy Crossed as much as Matched, but considering that Crossed is the second book in a planned trilogy that's almost to be expected.

A History of Venice by John Julius Norwich

Russell came back from the library one day and said that he'd seen a book he thought I might like, a history of Venice, but that he hadn't picked it up for me since he wasn't sure what my reading schedule looked like. My reading schedule, such as it is, is nothing but flexible and I love variety so I asked him to bring the book home next time he went to the library.

I have to admit that I was overwhelmed when he presented me with John Julius Norwich's 736-page A History of Venice: so fat, such fine print. Norwich starts with early settlements in the general area of the Venetian Republic (late Roman period) and follows through until Napoleon conquers the Republic. I think that I made it through the introduction and four chapters before we had to return the book or suffer over-due fees. I'm not sure that I'll check it out again, though. I suspect that there is another Venetian history out there that would be a better fit for me. From other reviews I've read it seems like Norwich continues to focus on political and military chronology while generally neglecting all the other (in my opinion) more interesting aspects of the Republic's history.

1. I was disappointed by Bumped by Megan McCafferty (see post) and the aforementioned Delirium, both of which I expected to love, and pleasantly surprised by Divergent by Veronica Roth (see post), which I'd more or less decided to pass over and only read because I won a copy from Kaye at paper reader.