NOVEMBER WRAP UP: What I Read This Month

Hi everyone! Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. Today, I’m reviewing the books I read in November. This month I’m also going to start posting my end-of-the-year reviews. I read 5 books in November. Here are my thoughts on all of them:

1. CLASSICS AND HORROR: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Dr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

This novella is one of the most famous and celebrated horror stories in literature and its renown and prominence are well-deserved. The story is that of a lawyer who investigates his friend Dr. Jeckyll’s transformation into the evil Mr. Hyde. Such a transformation highlights an overall theme of good versus evil and reveals the dangers of a hidden darkness within us all. We all have a Dr. Hyde inside of us and this story reminds us of that front and center.

When I picked it up as my seasonal read for Halloween earlier this year, I knew this novella had two things against it for me to love it: first, it is a novella; second, it is a horror story. And I don’t read much of either. In addition, the writing is a product of its time; you literally read lines such as “if he be Mr. Hyde, I shall be Mr. Seek,” bringing to mind the traditional children’s game Hide and Seek. It is not Edward Hyde who is hiding, however.  It is Dr. Jeckyll, and his actions as Mr. Hyde are immoral, atrocious, evil, horrific and monstrous. We all have a good side and a bad side, a good and moral person inside of us and a monster.

This novella is a strong influence and foundational work on modern thrillers. I liked it for its superb description of setting, which you can almost touch lightly with your fingers, and for its questions on morality. It is a story that makes you think and question.

I highly recommend it.

2. CLASSICS AND HORROR: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Another classic horror novel is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and I confess that I had not read this book yet despite its importance, relevance, and prominence in the genre. By reading this book, I understood that the Creature is a severely misunderstood and maligned person. He is a monster created by trauma and rejection; a monster who could have not been had he been accepted and loved by the one person who was supposed to do so without question: his father, Viktor Frankenstein. How many of us have not experienced this in one way or another? A lot.

Frankenstein has three main themes: a profound exploration of the relationship between a parent and child; human connection, an important piece in the puzzle of knowing who we are and where we come from. This in turn will help us figure out who we will become. And finally, this novel is a cautionary tale about scientific advancement, the ethics of science, and the limits of human ability and understanding.

I enjoyed this novel a lot more than I expected and recommended it highly.

3. FANTASY AND MYTHOLOGY: Daughters of Olympus by Hannah Lynn

This book is a retelling of the myth of Demeter, Persephone, and Hades, which explains the changing of the seasons. In the recent outpour of published novels retelling Greek mythology, this myth is a very popular myth to recount. And it is popular for a reason. It is one of the most important myths of Ancient Greece. Persephone’s relationship with Hades is complex, and many retellings published in the last few years focus primarily on the budding romance between these two gods. In fact, retellings of the romance between Persephone and Hades have been rolling out of the printing press in waves lately.

At its core, this myth is about love. Love between Persephone and Hades, yes, but also between a mother and her daughter; between Demeter and Core, who changes her name to Persephone once she becomes the Queen of the Underworld. In Daughters of Olympus, the fourth installment of the Retold: The Grecian Women Series, Hannah Lynn focuses on the relationship between Core and her mother. And she indeed gives the women in this myth a voice.

Both Demeter and Core have their own journey to traverse. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are all present, a source of grief and conflict for both of these goddesses, but they never take prominence in the story and we witness how each one of these goddesses grows from a young goddess into strong and powerful goddesses of the harvest in their own right.   

I Really Liked this novel and Will Probably Read It Again.

4. NONFICTION AND PHILOSOPHY: The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant

This book is a comprehensive account of European Western philosophy and its most prominent thinkers. It begins with Plato and Aristotle and ends with a chapter on the philosophies of current (at the time of its publication in 1926) American philosophers.

A Spanish translation of this book was on my dad’s bookshelf when I was growing up so I remember seeing it almost every day. But it wasn’t until I was in graduate school that I picked it up…and didn’t finish it. Not because I didn’t like it though, but because I couldn’t get into it. Especially when it talked out philosophy in the XIX and early XX centuries. I felt that I still had a lot of reading to do before I could pick it up again.

And now, I did.

Every chapter gives a brief account of a philosopher’s life (and death) before going on to explain the philosophical thought for which each one of those philosophers is known today. These explanations are superb and Durant’s writing is excellent. However, Durant focuses solely on European Western Philosophy, so it’s not the Story of Philosophy but the Story of Western Philosophy. He also does not go into Presocratic philosophy, which, however, was more concerned with natural phenomena than morality and I suspect that Durant’s intent was to account for the history of philosophy as a discipline in search of the meaning of right and wrong.  Hence, he dispenses with all the natural philosophers of Antiquity. He barely, however, mentions Socrates, who was the first philosopher to ask questions of a moral nature.

A second issue I had with this book is that Durant skips the entirety of the Middle Ages. I know that philosophy was overshadowed by theology during those 10 centuries and that many thinkers didn’t publish anything for fear of their own lives, but there was still philosophy in the Middle Ages. This, however, I know, was not the belief in 1926. So, I can’t really blame Will Durant for this.

Another issue is that the philosophers talked about in it were all men. From Plato to John Dewey. This, however, is another grievance that I cannot lay at Will Durant’s feet. Philosophy is a world of men. I know that and today this is still true. My intent however is to point it out, not to lessen the importance that men like Plato, Francis Bacon, Descartes, Kant, and others have had in human thought and knowledge. Of course, philosophers have not all been men. There have been women thinkers too; they were just not recognized for it. I think it is time to start doing that too.

This book however is a good introduction to Western European philosophy. Nonetheless, it isn’t the first book I would recommend for anyone wanting to start reading about the history of philosophy.

Oh geez, I just realized that this book is almost a century old.

5. FANTASY AND MYSTERY: The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

This book is a character-driven novel with an element of mystery steeped in Chinese folklore and magical realism. In 2021, I read this author’s debut novel, The Ghost Bride, and loved it. Later, I tried to read The Night Tiger and, unfortunately, couldn’t get into it. When I saw that she had published this third novel, The Fox Wife, I was hesitant to pick it up. My relationship with this author is a bag of opposites; I loved the first one but couldn’t get into the second one, and now, with The Fox Wife, I have mixed feelings. I loved the folklore and magical realism side of the story, but I wasn’t a big fan of the mystery side of things. The ending was also lackluster and disappointing.