That Book

I believe all of us have that one book that they can fall back on. The book that kept them reading. I found a book in seventh grade that held my imagination. A fictional work where it felt as if the author had written the main character for me. I discovered the book lying by the bookshelves that were in front of my door in the upstairs hallway when I lived in Pensacola, Florida.

It was a paperback book. The cover had some embossed shapes on it, the reflecting light on the dimpled cover is really what made me look at it further. It had a space ship landing on it, and I figured it looked decent, might as well pick it up and start reading. The book is Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card.

Shirer was going off to Ole Miss and my family and I were going as laborers to help move her in. It was near a ten hour trip and I needed something to read. I found the book to be so delightful and entertaining that I fought off carsickness to coninue reading it.

The reader meets the main character, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, at the beginning of the book. He is a 7 year old boy that is monitored by the government, but the reader does not know why. Two voices emerge from the onset, the first is that of government/beauraucratic talk and the other is the thrid person narrator that follows Ender.

Card tells the story of Ender being seperated from his parents, his psychotic brother and his sister, his emotional rock. He goes to a government funded military school, and through his brilliance and perseverance woops up on any challenge before him. The author does a good job of accounting for Ender's pathos, which similar to Gerry Durrell's novel, becomes quite voyeuristic and addictive. Ender saves the world at 11 or 13 by destroying another race (you would not believe why or how), but the novel does not stop there. It follows Ender until he is the age of 25, through his dealing with never being able to return home, through his void of destroying another race, and through his writing of what becomes a new religion in the future, The Speaker for the Dead.

I probably read Ender's Game 15 times before I thought of finding the rest of the series. What Card intended to be a three book series quickly turned into four, Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind. These books were of the original chronical of Ender's life... Oh! SO GOOD! But then, because so many characters in the story had strong individual characters Card had to write their stories, no Rosencrantz and Gilderstern here, by God! So he released books following other characters, Ender's friends, from the books, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and First Meetings.

I read Shadow of the Hegemon last year and I am wanting to read the last two of the series. So, Mr. Card, if you are reading this, feel free to send me hard-bound, autographed copies of the series. I am currently reading Ender's Game again, because, yes, it is that damn good!

As my buddy Peter said, it is my Catcher in the Rye.