Gibblet is Mine!

Picked from the Book Thing yesterday:

Frommers Germany 91
Dollarwise Guide to Germany (88-89)
APA Publication Manual, 5th ed
90210 Paperback series: Which Way to the Beach?
Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896 (Mary Baker Eddy)
Potomac Review (Winter 2000-01)

Dropped off:
Nobody's Fool (Richard Russo)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

I've got about 100 pages left to read. Maybe I am used to the modern American prison system, but I am struck by how relatively unbrutal Mandela's experience was. He mentions a prisoner here and there in another block getting viciously beaten, but nothing happens to the political prisoners except for isolation. Of course, I suppose nothing much happens to Mandela because he is a lawyer (if there's one thing I've learned reading this book, it's to know your rights). Maybe it's his prose style, his diction, but I don't really get a feel for how awful life on Robben island was. In fact, sometimes it wasn't, sometimes it was according to whoever was the appointed warden at the time. He also doesn't translate to the reader (at least to me) how lonely and devastating it is not to see your family for years on end, with only one letter every six months, although his mother's death did move me. It's also hard for me to put thirty years in prison into perspective. It's so hard to realize, to have lived three lives (pre-prison, prison, after prison), when I was only lived one life thus far (pre-life-defining event).

All right, I'm thinking next time we should chose a shorter book, so I'm going to withdraw my nomination for The Castle at this point and instead suggest Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I've seen the movie several times (did Gene Wilder EVER have any sex appeal?) but never read the book. What say, girls?