Monday, February 27, 2012

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller

CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller

Author(s) Joseph Heller
Cover artist Paul Bacon
Country USA
Language English
Genre(s) Black humor, satire, war fiction, historical fiction
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Publication date 11 November 1961
Media type Print (hardback)
Pages 453 pp (1st edition hardback)
ISBN 0-684-83339-5
OCLC Number 35231812
Dewey Decimal 813/.54 22
LC Classification PS3558.E476 C3 2004
Followed by Closing Time (1994)

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Catch-22 is a satirical, historical novel by the American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953, and the novel was first published in 1961. It is set during World War II in 1943 and is frequently cited as one of the great literary works of the twentieth century. It uses a distinctive non-chronological third person omniscient narration, describing events from different characters' points of view and out of sequence so that the time line develops along with the plot.
The novel follows Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier, and a number of other characters. Most events occur while the Airmen of the fictional 256th squadron are based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea west of Italy.
The title refers to what has become known, from the novel, as Catch-22 (logic), based on the explanation of the character Doc Daneeka as to why any pilot requesting a psych evaluation hoping to be found not sane enough to fly, and thereby escape dangerous missions, would thereby demonstrate his sanity:




Rankings:
  • The Modern Library ranked Catch-22 as the 7th (by review panel) and 12th (by public) greatest English language novel of the twentieth century.
  • The Radcliffe Publishing Course rank Catch-22 as number 15 of the twentieth century's top 100 novels.
  • The Observer listed Catch-22 as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time.
  • TIME puts Catch-22 in the top 100 English language modern novels (1923 onwards, unranked).
  • The Big Read by the BBC ranked Catch-22 as number 11 on a web poll of the UK's best-loved book.
Adaptations:
  • Catch-22 was adapted into a feature film of the same name in 1970, directed by Mike Nichols.
  • Aquila Theatre produced a stage adaptation of Catch-22, based on Heller's 1971 stage adaption. It was directed by Peter Meineck. This production toured the USA in 2007/8 with a New York City production in the fall of 2008.
  • A pilot for a comedy series based upon Catch-22 was made and televised in 1973, with Richard Dreyfuss in the starring role of Capt. Yossarian.
  • The ska band Catch 22 took its name from the book.
Source: Wikipedia

Ulysses by James Joyce

Ulysses by James Joyce

Ulysses by James Joyce


Author(s) James Joyce
Country France
Language English
Genre(s) Modernist Novel
Publisher Sylvia Beach
Publication date 2 February 1922
Media type Print book (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 644–1,000, depending on edition
ISBN 0-679-72276-9
OCLC Number 20827511
Dewey Decimal 823/.912 20
LC Classification PR6019.O9 U4 1990
Preceded by A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
(1916)
Followed by Finnegans Wake
(1939)
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Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature, it has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement". "Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking."Ulysses chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, 16 June 1904 (the day of Joyce's first date with his future wife, Nora Barnacle). The title alludes to Odysseus (Latinised into Ulysses), the hero of Homer's Odyssey, and establishes a series of parallels between characters and events in Homer's poem and Joyce's novel (e.g., the correspondence of Leopold Bloom to Odysseus, Molly Bloom to Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus to Telemachus). Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate 16 June as Bloomsday.
Ulysses is approximately 265,000 words in length, uses a lexicon of 30,030 words (including proper names, plurals and various verb tenses), and is divided into eighteen episodes. Since publication, the book attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from early obscenity trials to protracted textual "Joyce Wars." Ulysses' stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose—full of puns, parodies, and allusions, as well as its rich characterisations and broad humour, made the book a highly regarded novel in the Modernist pantheon. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Ulysses first on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Structure:

Joyce divided Ulysses into 18 chapters or "episodes". At first glance much of the book may appear unstructured and chaotic; Joyce once said that he had "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant," which would earn the novel "immortality". The two schemata which Stuart Gilbert and Herbert Gorman released after publication to defend Joyce from the obscenity accusations made the links to the Odyssey clear, and also explained the work's internal structure.
Every episode of Ulysses has a theme, technique, and correspondence between its characters and those of the Odyssey. The original text did not include these episode titles and the correspondences; instead, they originate from the Linati and Gilbert schema. Joyce referred to the episodes by their Homeric titles in his letters. He took the idiosyncratic rendering of some of the titles––'Nausikaa', the 'Telemachia'––from Victor Bérard's two-volume Les Phéniciens et l’Odyssée which he consulted in 1918 in the Zentralbibliothek Zürich.

Part I: The Telemachiad

Episode 1, Telemachus

It is 8 a.m. Buck Mulligan, a boisterous medical student, calls Stephen Dedalus (a young writer first encountered in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) up to the roof of the Sandycove Martello tower where they both live. There is tension between Stephen and Mulligan, stemming from a cruel remark Stephen has overheard Mulligan making about his recently deceased mother and from the fact that Mulligan has invited an English student, Haines, to stay with them. The three men eat breakfast and walk to the shore, where Mulligan demands from Stephen the key to the tower and a loan. Departing, Stephen declares that he will not return to the tower tonight, as Mulligan, the "usurper", has taken it over.

Episode 2, Nestor

Stephen is teaching a history class on the victories of Pyrrhus of Epirus. After class, one student, Sargent, stays behind so that Stephen can show him how to do a set of arithmetic exercises. Stephen looks at the aesthetically unappealing Sargent and tries to imagine Sargent's mother's love for him. Stephen then visits school headmaster, Mr. Deasy, from whom he collects his pay and a letter to take to a newspaper office for printing. The two discuss Irish history and the role of Jews in the economy. As Stephen leaves, Deasy makes a final derogatory remark against the Jews, stating that Ireland has never extensively persecuted the Jews because they were never let in to the country. This episode is the source of some of the novel's most famous lines, such as Dedalus's claim that "history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" and that God is "a shout in the street."

 Episode 3, Proteus

Stephen finds his way to Sandymount Strand and mopes around for some time, mulling various philosophical concepts, his family, his life as a student in Paris, and his mother's death. As Stephen reminisces and ponders, he lies down among some rocks, watches a couple and a dog, scribbles some ideas for poetry, picks his nose, and urinates behind a rock. This chapter is characterised by a stream of consciousness narrative style that changes focus wildly. Stephen's education is reflected in the many obscure references and foreign phrases employed in this episode.

Part II: The Odyssey

Episode 4, Calypso

The narrative shifts abruptly. The time is again 8 a.m., but the action has moved across the city and to the second protagonist of the book, Leopold Bloom, a part-Jewish advertising canvasser. Bloom, after starting to prepare breakfast, decides to walk to a butcher to buy a pork kidney. Returning home, he prepares breakfast and brings it with the mail to his wife Molly as she lounges in bed. One of the letters is from her concert manager Blazes Boylan. Bloom is aware that Molly will welcome Boylan into her bed later that day, and is tormented by the thought. Bloom reads a letter from their daughter. The chapter closes with Bloom defecating in the outhouse.

Episode 5, Lotus Eaters

Bloom makes his way to Westland Row post office where he receives a love letter from one 'Martha Clifford' addressed to his pseudonym, 'Henry Flower'. He meets an acquaintance, and while they chat, Bloom attempts to ogle a woman wearing stockings, but is prevented by a passing tram. Next, he reads the letter and tears up the envelope in an alley. He wanders into a Catholic church service and muses on theology. He goes to a chemist where he buys a bar of lemon soap. He then meets another acquaintance, to whom he unintentionally gives a racing tip for the horse Throwaway. Finally, Bloom heads towards the baths.

Episode 6, Hades

The episode begins with Bloom entering a funeral carriage with three others, including Stephen's father. They drive to Paddy Dignam's funeral, making small talk on the way. The carriage passes both Stephen and Blazes Boylan. There is discussion of various forms of death and burial, and Bloom is preoccupied by thoughts of his dead son, Rudy, and the suicide of his father. They enter the chapel into the service and subsequently leave with the coffin cart. Bloom sees a mysterious man wearing a macintosh during the burial. Bloom continues to reflect upon death, but at the end of the episode rejects morbid thoughts to embrace 'warm fullblooded life'.

Episode 7, Aeolus

At the office of the Freeman's Journal, Bloom attempts to place an ad. Although initially encouraged by the editor, he is unsuccessful. Stephen arrives bringing Deasy's letter about 'foot and mouth' disease, but Stephen and Bloom do not meet. Stephen leads the editor and others to a pub, telling an anecdote on the way about 'two Dublin vestals'. The episode is broken up into short sections by newspaper-style headlines, and is characterised by an abundance of rhetorical figures and devices.

Episode 8, Lestrygonians

Bloom's thoughts are peppered with references to food as lunchtime approaches. He meets an old flame and hears news of Mina Purefoy's labour. He enters the restaurant of the Burton Hotel where he is revolted by the sight of men eating like animals. He goes instead to Davy Byrne's pub, where he consumes a gorgonzola cheese sandwich and a glass of burgundy, and muses upon the early days of his relationship with Molly and how the marriage has declined: 'Me. And me now.' Bloom heads towards the National Museum to look at the statues of Greek goddesses, and, in particular, their bottoms. Bloom suddenly spots Boylan across the street and, panicking, rushes into the museum.

Episode 9, Scylla and Charybdis

At the National Library, Stephen explains to various scholars his biographical theory of the works of Shakespeare, especially Hamlet, which he claims are based largely on the posited adultery of Shakespeare's wife. Bloom enters the National Library to look up an old copy of the ad he has been trying to place. He encounters Stephen briefly and unknowingly at the end of the episode.

Episode 10, Wandering Rocks

In this episode, nineteen short vignettes depict the wanderings of various characters, major and minor, through the streets of Dublin. The episode ends with an account of the cavalcade of the Lord Lieutenant, William Humble, Earl of Dudley, through the streets, which is encountered by various characters from the novel.

Episode 11, Sirens

In this episode, dominated by motifs of music, Bloom has dinner with Stephen's uncle at a hotel, while Molly's lover, Blazes Boylan, proceeds to his rendezvous with her. While dining, Bloom watches the seductive barmaids and listens to the singing of Stephen's father and others.

Episode 12, Cyclops

This chapter is narrated by an unnamed denizen of Dublin. The narrator goes to a pub where he meets a character referred to only as the 'Citizen'. When Leopold Bloom enters the pub, he is berated by the Citizen, who is a fierce Fenian and anti-Semite. The episode ends with Bloom reminding the Citizen that his Saviour was a Jew. As Bloom leaves the pub, the Citizen, in anger, throws a biscuit tin at Bloom's head, but misses. The chapter is marked by extended tangents made outside the voice of the unnamed narrator: hyperboles of legal jargon, Biblical passages, Irish mythology, etc.

Episode 13, Nausicaa

Gerty MacDowell, a young woman on Sandymount strand, contemplates love, marriage and femininity as night falls. The reader is gradually made aware that Bloom is watching her from a distance, and as she exposes her legs and underwear to him it is unclear how much of the narrative is actually Bloom’s sexual fantasy. Bloom’s masturbatory climax is echoed by the fireworks at the nearby bazaar. As Gerty leaves, Bloom realizes that Gerty has a lame leg. Bloom, after several digressions of thought, decides to visit Mina Purefoy at the hospital. The style of the first half of the episode borrows from (and parodies) romance magazines and novelettes.

Episode 14, Oxen of the Sun

Bloom visits the maternity hospital where Mina Purefoy is giving birth, and finally meets Stephen, who is drinking with Buck Mulligan and his medical student friends. They continue on to a pub to continue drinking, following the successful birth of the baby. This chapter is remarkable for Joyce's wordplay, which seems to recapitulate the entire history of the English language. After a short incantation, the episode starts with latinate prose, Anglo-Saxon alliteration, and moves on through parodies of, among others, Malory, the King James Bible, Bunyan, Defoe, Sterne, Walpole, Gibbon, Dickens, and Carlyle, before concluding in a haze of nearly incomprehensible slang.

Episode 15, Circe

Episode 15 is written as a play script, complete with stage directions. The plot is frequently interrupted by 'hallucinations' experienced by Stephen and Bloom—fantastic manifestations of the fears and passions of the two characters.
Stephen and Lynch walk into Nighttown, Dublin's red-light district. Bloom pursues them and eventually finds them at Bella Cohen's brothel. When Bloom witnesses Stephen overpaying for services received, Bloom decides to hold onto the rest of Stephen's money for safekeeping. Stephen hallucinates that the rotting cadaver of his mother has risen up from the floor to confront him. Terrified, Stephen uses his walking stick to smash a chandelier and then runs out. Bloom quickly pays Bella for the damage, then runs after Stephen. Bloom finds Stephen engaged in a heated argument with an English soldier who, after a perceived insult to the King, punches Stephen. The police arrive and the crowd disperses. As Bloom is tending to Stephen, Bloom has a hallucination of Rudy, his deceased child.

Part III: The Nostos

Episode 16, Eumaeus

Bloom and Stephen go to the cabman's shelter to restore the latter to his senses. At the cabman's shelter, they encounter a drunken sailor, D. B. Murphy. Riding in the cab, Stephen sings a spirited song by the Baroque composer Johannes Jeep, and he and Bloom bond over its misogyny. The episode is dominated by the motif of confusion and mistaken identity, with Bloom, Stephen and Murphy's identities being repeatedly called into question. The rambling and laboured style of the narrative in this episode reflects the nervous exhaustion and confusion of the two protagonists.

Episode 17, Ithaca

Bloom returns home with Stephen, who refuses Bloom's offer of a place to stay for the night. The two men urinate in the backyard, Stephen departs and wanders off into the night,and Bloom goes to bed. The episode is written in the form of a rigidly organised catechism, and was reportedly Joyce's favourite episode in the novel. The style is that of a scientific inquiry, with questions furthering the narrative. The deep descriptions range from questions of astronomy to the trajectory of urination.

Episode 18, Penelope

The final episode, which also uses the stream of consciousness technique seen in Episode 3, consists of Molly Bloom's Soliloquy: eight great run-on sentences (without punctuation) describe the thoughts of Molly, Bloom's wife, as she lies in bed next to her husband.
Molly guesses that Bloom had an orgasm that day, and is reminded of his past possible infidelity with other women. She considers the differences between Boylan and Bloom, in terms of virility and masculinity. Molly feels that she and Bloom are lucky, despite their current marital difficulties. Molly recalls her many admirers, previous and current. She wishes she had more money to buy stylish clothes, and believes that Bloom should quit his advertising job and get better paid work elsewhere. Molly thinks about how beautiful female breasts are, particularly compared to male genitalia. She thinks of the time Bloom suggested she pose naked in exchange for money. Her thoughts return to Boylan and of her orgasm earlier.
A train whistle blows outside, and Molly thinks of her childhood in Gibraltar. Out of boredom and loneliness, she had resorted to writing herself letters. Molly thinks about how her daughter sent her a card this morning, whereas her husband received a whole letter. She imagines that she may receive another love letter from Boylan. Molly recalls her first love letter from Lieutenant Mulvey, whom she kissed under the bridge in Gibraltar. She later lost contact with him and wonders what he would be like now. Her thoughts turn to her singing career, and Molly wonders what path her career could have taken had she not married Bloom.
Molly senses the start of her period, confirmation that her tryst with Boylan has not caused a pregnancy. She gets up to use the chamberpot. Events of the day spent with Boylan run through her mind.
Molly climbs quietly back into bed and thinks of the times she and Bloom have had to relocate. Her mind then turns to Stephen, whom she met during his childhood. She conjectures that Stephen is probably not stuck-up, and is most likely clean. She fantasizes about having sexual encounters with him. Molly resolves to study before meeting him so he will not look down upon her. Molly thinks of her husband's strange sexual habits. Molly speculates that the world would be much improved if it consisted of Matriarchal Societies. Thinking again of Stephen, and then of his mother's death, evokes memory of Rudy's death, whereupon she ends this line of thought as it is making her depressed. Molly thinks about arousing Bloom in the morning, then revealing the details of her affair with Boylan to make him realise his culpability. She decides to procure some flowers, in case Stephen Dedalus decides to come around. Thinking of flowers, Molly remembers the day she and Bloom spent at Howth, his marriage proposal, and her acceptance: "yes I said yes I will Yes."

Source : Wikipedia

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Fear by L. Ron Hubbard

Fear by L.Ron Hubbard  Cover page illustration

Fear by L. Ron Hubbard


Author(s) L. Ron Hubbard
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Horror novella
Publisher Unknown Fantasy Fiction (in magazine form)
Publication date July 1940
Media type Magazine, later Hardback and Paperback)
ISBN NA
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Fear is a psychological thriller-horror novella by L. Ron Hubbard first appearing in Unknown Fantasy Fiction in July 1940. While previous editions followed the magazine text, the 1991 Bridge edition reportedly restores the author's original manuscript text. The novella is ranked 10th on Modern Library 100 Best Novels - The Reader's List.

Brief Summary:

University professor James Lowry is a disbeliever in spirits or witches, or demons, so much so that he publishes an article in a newspaper denying the existence of them. He is warned of the possible repercussions by his friend Tommy Williams. That same spring evening his hat disappears. Lowry discovers that four hours of his life have gone missing. Lowry is pursued by an omnipotent evil force that is turning his whole world against him while it whispers a warning from the shadows: "...if you find your hat you'll find your four hours. If you find your four hours then you will die..." Lowry is suspicious that Tommy may be having an affair with his wife, Mary, even in his dreams of demons. Lowry goes about his day-to-day life, but increasingly begins seeing demons, ghouls and odd things about him. He wakes up in the middle of the night to shadows that are leading him out of his bedroom and out into his garden which has transformed into a vast creepy slope. At this point, he is led down a long winding staircase in the middle of his lawn that seems to disappear. He goes out looking for the four hours of his life that he has lost and his hat (which he seems to have lost at the same time). He finds both the hat and realizes what he has done in the four hours in a final twist of the book, where the reader comes to realize that he had a psychotic break early on (the missing 4 hours) and most everything that you've read never even happened. It's chilling to discover the truth of what happened during those four hours, as the reader has been led to like the protagonist, when he has been the antagonist all along.

Source: Wikipedia.

Mission Earth by L.Ron Hubbard

Mission Earth by L.Ron Hubbard

Mission Earth by L.Ron Hubbard

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Mission Earth is a ten-volume science fiction novel series by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology. Hubbard died three months after the publication of volume 1, the rest of the book being published posthumously.
The series' initial publisher, Bridge Publications coined the word dekalogy, meaning "a series of ten books", to describe and promote the novel. Made up of about 1.2 million words, the epic is a "satirical science fiction adventure set in the far future." It made it to the top of bestseller lists, same as the subsequent volumes in the series.
The first five volumes of the Mission Earth series, several of which have been published posthumously, include The Invaders Plan (1985), Black Genesis: Fortress of Evil (1986), The Enemy Within (1986), An Alien Affair (1986), and Fortune and Fear (1986).



Brief Summary:

The books are written as the confessions of Soltan Gris, an agent of the CIA on the planet Voltar (the Coordinated Information Apparatus or, more simply, The Apparatus, which is run with an iron hand by its boss, Lombar Hisst), as an exposé. Each book begins with a disclaimer from Lord Invay, the head Censor, denying the very existence of the planet Earth itself and denouncing the story as rankest fiction, despite the inclusion of characters who are real and known public figures in the novel's fictional world, such as Jettero Heller and the Countess Krak.
The Voltar Confederacy wishes to conquer the planet Earth, which they regard as an important potential base on the main route of their planned invasion of the galactic centre. The conquest of Earth is scheduled for over 100 years in the future, but the Grand Council of Voltar becomes convinced that it must send a mission to prevent Earth from destroying itself through pollution and possibly war, so as not to disrupt the future timetable of conquest. The mission is assigned to Fleet Combat Engineer Jettero Heller, a character of perfection and incorruptibility. Soon after reaching Earth, he heads to New York City. He investigates why Earth is self-destructing, unaware that he is being tracked and that factions on Voltar want his mission to fail.
Unknown to Heller, Earth is also the base for a secret plan put into action by the insane, diabolically evil Lombar Hisst to seize the throne of the Empire of Voltar for himself. Hisst has been importing illegal narcotic drugs from Earth and using them to enslave the entire population of aristocratic heads of government on Voltar. By turning the entire government into drug addicts, Hisst plans to take control of the Empire for himself. Because of Earth's role as a supplier of drugs, Hisst decides that Heller's mission to save the planet must not succeed.
Lombar Hisst assigns a cowardly, sadistic, greedy stooge named Soltan Gris to supervise the mission to Earth, in order to sabotage it and destroy Jettero Heller. The majority of the story is told from Gris' point of view, with an emphasis on the comical situations Gris ends up in as he tries to stop Heller. Over the course of the novel, Gris finds himself in possession of twelve tons of pure gold, which he tries to launder through a Swiss bank account in order to keep it all for himself; he becomes a prisoner of two man-hating lesbians (who end up marrying Gris after he rapes them and thereby "cures" them of their lesbianism, but not before various ingenious tortures, one of which involve a cheese grater and chili powder); he repeatedly finds himself losing large amounts of money, becoming broke, and having to concoct wild schemes to save himself from his creditors; he has an affair with a young nymphomaniac teenage girl whom he cannot escape; he hires a hit man to kill Heller's fiancé, only to stumble through the affair and end up being a target for the hit man himself; he embarks on a long cruise through the Mediterranean (mirroring Hubbard's own voyages through the area in the 1970s); and finally, Gris becomes the target after Heller realizes that he is behind the operation to disrupt his mission.
Heller's investigations of Earth soon reveal to him that the entire planet is in the grip of a vast organized corporate conspiracy headed by the Rockecenter corporation and its head, Delbert John Rockecenter (the similarity to "John D. Rockefeller" is one of many blatant puns and references included in the series by Hubbard). Rockecenter is the head of a vast oil-producing corporation that keeps the population of Earth under control by using drugs and rock and roll music to keep the population sedate. (Rock music is used in the novel to spread sexual deviancy, especially homosexuality, among the population of Earth.)
Heller's attempts to break the demonic control of Earth by Rockecenter make him a target, and the corporation uses its most dangerous weapons to destroy him: psychiatry and psychology, and a mad, idealistic public relations genius by the name of J. Walter Madison (known as "J. Warbler Madman"). Madison initiates a wide-reaching public relations campaign to make Heller known to the world as the "Whiz Kid", but results in destroying Heller's reputation so that all of Heller's efforts to save the planet come to naught, as Madison's employer, Rockecenter, wanted. Fortunately, Heller's outstanding skills and abilities are reinforced by the arrival on Earth of his fiancée, the Countess Krak, and the alliance and friendship of the Mafia — specifically the Corleone family.
After a series of world-shattering events, which include the impact of an ice meteor on the Soviet Union, the world's entire oil supply being turned radioactive, and a black hole orbiting the Earth (providing free energy for Heller to harness and make available to the world), Heller returns to Voltar to find that not only have Lombar Hisst's plans to enslave the government nearly succeeded, but Madison the PR madman has been loosed on the empire of Voltar and is in the process of starting a galactic civil war.
After the defeat of Hisst and Madison, a massive cover-up operation commences to wipe out the effects of PR, psychology and psychiatry, and the CIA from Voltar's empire. All mention of these subjects is censored and the planet Earth is eradicated from all star charts and similar items. As far as the Voltarans are concerned, there is no such place as planet Earth.

Volumes:
  1. The Invaders Plan (October 1985, ISBN 1-59212-022-9), 559 pages
  2. Black Genesis (March 1986, ISBN 1-59212-023-7), 431 pages
  3. The Enemy Within (May 1986, ISBN 1-59212-024-5), 393 pages
  4. An Alien Affair (August 1986, ISBN 1-59212-025-3), 329 pages
  5. Fortune of Fear (October 1986, ISBN 1-59212-026-1), 329 pages
  6. Death Quest (January 1987, ISBN 1-59212-027-X), 490 pages
  7. Voyage of Vengeance (May 1987, ISBN 1-59212-028-8), 381 pages
  8. Disaster (June 1987, ISBN 1-59212-029-6), 337 pages
  9. Villainy Victorious (September 1987, ISBN 1-59212-030-X), 410 pages
  10. The Doomed Planet (September 1987, ISBN 1-59212-031-8), 333 pages
Page counts are from hardcover editions, and total 3992 pages.


Sales controversy:

The Mission Earth books were a major sales success, particularly the earlier volumes in the series, with all individual volumes reaching the New York Times bestseller list. The extent to which this reflects actual popularity is strongly questioned. A large number of booksellers, publishing executives, and former Scientologists state that, as with other Hubbard books, the Church of Scientology engaged in a massive book-buying campaign, similar to the campaign to promote Battlefield Earth, so as to deliberately inflate sales of the series in order to promote it as a best-selling work of literature. Stories of the books being sent to stores bearing other store's price tags circulated throughout the science fiction fan community.
In a two-year span, Hubbard logged 14 consecutive books on the New York Times list. Adam Clymer, a New York Times executive, said that, while the books have been sold in sufficient numbers to justify their bestseller status, "we don't know to whom they were sold." He said the newspaper uncovered no instances in which vast quantities of books were being sold to single individuals.

Source: Wikipedia

We The Living by Ayn Rand

We the living by Ayn Rand

WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand


Author(s) Ayn Rand
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Historical Fiction, Semi-Autobiographic
Publisher Macmillan
Publication date 1936
Media type Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages 464 Pages
ISBN 978-0451187840
OCLC Number 34187185
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We the Living is the first novel published by the Russian-American novelist Ayn Rand. It was also Rand's first statement against communism. First published in 1936, it is a story of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Rand observes in the foreword to this book that We the Living was the closest she would ever come to writing an autobiography. Her working title for the novel had been Airtight. We the Living was first completed in 1934, but, despite support from H.L. Mencken, who deemed it "a really excellent piece of work," it was rejected by several publishers until 1936, when George Platt Brett of Macmillan Publishing agreed to publish her book. Brett said "he did not know if they would make money on it or not, but that it was a novel that should be published. It has since sold more than 3 million copies.
Brief Summary:
The story takes place from 1922 to 1925, in post-revolutionary Russia. Kira Argounova, the protagonist of the story, is the younger daughter of a bourgeois family. An independent spirit with a will to match, she rejects any attempt by her family or the nascent Soviet State to cast her into a mold. At the beginning of the story, Kira returns to Petrograd along with her family, after a prolonged exile due to the assault of the revolutionaries. Kira's father had been the owner of a textile factory, which had been seized and nationalized. The family, having given up all hopes of regaining their past possessions after the emphatic victories of the Red Army in the last four years, is resigned to their fate, as they return to the city in search of livelihood. They find, to their dismay, that their home has likewise been seized, and converted to living quarters for several families. Left with nowhere to go, the family moves into Kira's aunt Marussia's apartment.
The severity of life in the newly Socialist Russia is biting and cruel, especially for the people belonging to the now-stigmatized middle class. Kira's uncle Vasili has also lost his family business to the state, and has been forced to sell off his possessions, one at a time, for money (which has lost much of its value owing to steep inflation). Private enterprises have been strictly controlled, and licenses to run them allotted only to those "enjoying the trust" of the proletariat. Food is rationed. Only laborers of nationalized businesses and students in state-run educational institutions have access to ration cards. The family of five survives on the ration cards allotted to the two younger members of the family, who are students.
After a brief stay at Vasili's home, Kira's family manages to find living quarters. Kira's father also manages to get a license to open a textile shop, an establishment that is but a shadow of his old firm. Life is excruciatingly difficult in these times. Rand portrays the bleak scenarios by vivid descriptions of long queues, weary citizens and low standards of living. (Everyone regularly cooks on a kerosene camp stove, usually a Swedish Primus stove, and the typical main course is millet, or whatever can be blended together.)
With some effort, Kira manages to register with the State and obtain her Labor Book (which permits her to study and work). Kira also manages to enroll in the Technological Institute, where she aspires to fulfill her dream of becoming an engineer. She plans to storm the male bastion of engineers, and show her prowess by building structures like a lightweight aluminum bridge. Kira's strength of resolve to fulfill her dream is asserted at various points in the storyline. Becoming a highly competent engineer would be Kira's carving for herself a niche in a society that has become characterless and anonymous, and whose primary purpose in life has been reduced to subsistence rather than excellence. At the Institute, Kira meets Andrei Taganov, a co-student, an idealistic Communist, and an officer in the G.P.U., the secret police of the Soviet Union. The two share a mutual respect and admiration for each other in spite of their differing political beliefs. Andrei and Kira develop a friendship that endures until the end of the story.
In a chance encounter, Kira meets Leo Kovalensky on a dark night in a seedy neighborhood. Leo is an extremely attractive man with a free spirit matched only by Kira's. It's love at first sight for Kira, and she unflinchingly throws herself at Leo. Leo, who initially takes her to be a prostitute, is also strongly attracted to her and promises to meet her again. Kira and Leo are shown to be united by their desperate lives, and their lofty beliefs that ran counter to what were being thrust on them by the State. After a couple of meetings, when they share their deep contempt for the state of their lives, the two plan to escape together from the land, on a clandestine mission operated by secret ships.
The novel, from this point on, slowly cascades into a series of catastrophes for Kira and Leo. They are caught while attempting to flee the country, but escape imprisonment due to the generosity of a G.P.U. official, Stepan Timoshenko, who had fought under the command of Leo's father before the revolution. Kira leaves her parents' apartment and moves into Leo's. The relationship between Kira and Leo, intense and passionate in the beginning, begins to deteriorate under the weight of their hardships, and because of their different reactions to these hardships. Kira, who is an idealistic realist, keeps her ideas and aspirations alive, but decides to go with the system anyway, until she feels powerful enough to challenge it. Soon the state decides to expel anyone of a bourgeois background. On the verge of starvation, Kira finds work with the help of Andrei, enough to retain her ration card. Leo, however, burdened by his class background, and without any communist friend to help him, fails to find work, and sinks slowly into indifference and depression. He contracts tuberculosis and is prescribed treatment and recuperation in a sanatorium in Crimea in the South. Kira's efforts to finance his treatment fail, and her passionate appeals to the authorities to get State help for his stay at the sanatorium fall on deaf ears.
Andrei, an equally important person in Kira's life, is portrayed by Rand as a man of character, resolve, and an unassailable loyalty to his party and ideology. Despite his political beliefs, Kira finds him to be the one person she could trust, and with whom she could discuss her most intimate thoughts and views. Not even Leo could fulfill that role for her. Andrei's affection and respect for Kira knows no bounds, and it slowly turns into love. Worried what this might do to their "beautiful and rare" friendship, he starts avoiding Kira. Kira misses him, and needs his help. Eventually when she confronts him in his house, Andrei explains his avoidance of her and confesses his love for her. Kira is dismayed at first, but recovers to find in it a way to finance Leo's treatment. Reluctant, but in desperation, she feigns love for Andrei, and agrees to become his mistress in return for the promise of complete secrecy about their relationship. Kira is never comfortable with what she was doing with her body, but is even more frightened by "what she was doing to another man's soul".
The narrative reaches a climactic pace when Leo returns from Crimea, cured of tuberculosis and healthy, but a changed man. Ignoring Kira's protests, he opens a food store with the help of his morally bankrupt and rich friends, and a corrupt member of the Communist Party. The store is but a facade for illegal speculation and trade. Andrei is tipped off about this venture by Stepan Timoshenko, who commits suicide in despair at what is happening to his Soviet Union, but only after depositing a key piece of evidence with Andrei. Ignoring Kira's pleas, and unaware of her love for Leo, Andrei starts investigating Leo's store. After a search at his house, he arrests Leo for crimes against the State, which could carry a death sentence. In the process, he finds out about Kira's relationship with Leo. The ensuing confrontation between Andrei and Kira is perhaps the most poignant scene in the story. In the end, both realize what they had done to each other and how their passion and pretension had led them to the destruction of what each had held in "the highest reverence". Andrei decides to redress the situation, at least for Kira, and moves to restore Leo to her, risking his own standing in the Party.
After Leo's release from the prison at Andrei's behest, the story ends in tragedy for all the three. Andrei loses his position in the Party, and shortly thereafter commits suicide. Kira, perhaps the only genuine mourner at his State funeral, wonders if she had killed him. Having lost any moral sense that he may have left, Leo leaves Kira to begin a new life as a gigolo, fulfilling the earlier portrayal of him as such by Kira's perceptive cousin Irina (who has been sentenced to a long prison term for associating with counter-revolutionaries). After Leo's departure, Kira makes a final attempt to cross the border. When she is almost in sight of freedom and liberation from her hellish life, she is shot by a border guard and soon dies. Kira remains loyal to her love for Leo until the end, and says at one point, "When a person dies, one does not stop loving him, does one? 

Revised Edition:

We the Living was not a commercial success when it was published in 1936. Macmillan did not expect the novel to sell and set it in movable type instead of making plates. Once the first printing of 3000 copies was exhausted, the novel was out of print. Rand's royalties from the first American edition amounted to $100. There was also a British publication, by Cassell in 1937.
When Rand's final novel, Atlas Shrugged, became a best-seller, Random House decided to republish We the Living. In preparation for the new edition, Rand made some changes to the text. In her Foreword to the 1959 edition, Rand declared that "In brief, all the changes are merely editorial line changes." Some of them have been taken to have philosophical significance. In the first edition, Kira said to Andrei, "I loathe your ideals. I admire your methods." In the second edition, this became simply "I loathe your ideals." A few pages later, Kira said to Andrei, "What are your masses but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?" Rand's revision deleted this sentence. Some scholars regard this as a bitter description of communist treatment of the masses, not Rand's own evaluation.
The significance of these and other revisions has been debated. According to Ronald Merrill, Kira in the first edition "adopts in the most explicit terms possible the ethical position of Friedrich Nietzsche." Rand had made her break with Nietzsche by the time she published The Fountainhead. Barbara Branden says, "Some of her readers were disturbed when they discovered this and similar changes" but insists that "unlike Nietzsche, she rejected as unforgivably immoral any suggestion that the superior man had the right to use physical force as a means to his end.". Mimi Reisel Gladstein merely commented, "She claims that the revision was minimal. Some readers of both editions have questioned her definition of 'minimal'."Robert Mayhew cautioned that “We should not conclude too quickly that these passages are strong evidence of an earlier Nietzschean phase in Ayn Rand’s development, because such language can be strictly metaphorical (even if the result of an early interest in Nietzsche)”Despite Rand's own description of the changes, Susan Love Brown countered that "Mayhew becomes an apologist for Rand’s denials of change and smooths over the fact that Rand herself saw the error of her ways and corrected them."
Nearly everyone who reads We the Living today reads the second edition. The first is a rare book; the second has sold over 3 million copies.

Film Adaptation:

Without Rand's permission, We the Living, which had been published in an Italian translation in 1937, was made into a two-part film, Noi Vivi and Addio, Kira in 1942. The films were directed by Goffredo Alessandrini for Scalera Films of Rome, and starred Alida Valli as Kira, Fosco Giachetti as Andrei, and Rossano Brazzi as Leo. Prior to their release, the films were nearly censored by Mussolini's government, but they were permitted because the story itself was set in Soviet Russia and was directly critical of that regime. The films were successful, and the public easily realized that they were as much against fascism as communism. After several weeks, the films were pulled from theaters after the Nazi German and fascist Italian governments discovered the story also carried an anti-fascist message.
Rediscovered in the 1960s through the efforts of Rand's lawyers, Erika Holzer and Henry Mark Holzer, these films were re-edited into a new version with English subtitles composed by Erika Holzer and Revision co-Producer Duncan Scott. This version was approved by Rand and her estate and re-released as We the Living in 1986. A two-disc DVD of the film is currently being sold by Duncan Scott Productions.
Source : Wikipedia