Bible
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Boris Pasternak
Portal 2
John Banister Tabb
William Wordsworth
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Quotes Index
What can I say? I like being organized. Here is a list of all of the quotes I've posted on here, sorted based on the originator of the quote, in alphabetical order.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
JulNo Progress and Quotes!
I had a day off from the library today, so I basically spent my time doing a number of small things. I finished up the backlog of reviews that I needed to write for the books I've read, so those are posted. Then I finished up my calculus studying, and I started reviewing for physics. Yep, I'm counting the review books as things I've read, because I have sunk a lot of time into 'em, and they're books. I'll probably fail even more miserably at the 100 book goal if I don't include them, so there. Nyeh nyeh. ;)
Besides some gross personal things that you--the Internet--don't need to hear about, not much else happened today. What can I say? I'm a slobby, lazy person in the summer. I did, however, spend a bunch of time perusing Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, and that was a lot of fun. It made me remember how much I love Emerson, namely A LOT. But I also found a bunch of quotes I decided to copy down, and some even for my novel!
Probably you know this already, but it's like a tradition with me to do JulNoWriMo every year, each time with a new novel, since 2009. I'm well-aware that I'm a fairly pretentious person. (I love that I say that with a pretentious statement. Heh. :) So it's no understatement when I say that most of what I've written previously for JulNo's and NaNo's has been fairly shitty and overblown. That is why this summer I decided I wanted to do something entirely different. I want to try to break the mold of what I've done before, you know?
But back to Bartlett. I found a ton of quotes that I liked for my novel, to either be integrated or included in the epigraph at the beginning. And, best of all, I found myself a title! Yeah!
I'm going to be calling my piece The Shadow of the Daisy. It's after the following Wordsworth quote:
Besides some gross personal things that you--the Internet--don't need to hear about, not much else happened today. What can I say? I'm a slobby, lazy person in the summer. I did, however, spend a bunch of time perusing Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, and that was a lot of fun. It made me remember how much I love Emerson, namely A LOT. But I also found a bunch of quotes I decided to copy down, and some even for my novel!
Probably you know this already, but it's like a tradition with me to do JulNoWriMo every year, each time with a new novel, since 2009. I'm well-aware that I'm a fairly pretentious person. (I love that I say that with a pretentious statement. Heh. :) So it's no understatement when I say that most of what I've written previously for JulNo's and NaNo's has been fairly shitty and overblown. That is why this summer I decided I wanted to do something entirely different. I want to try to break the mold of what I've done before, you know?
But back to Bartlett. I found a ton of quotes that I liked for my novel, to either be integrated or included in the epigraph at the beginning. And, best of all, I found myself a title! Yeah!
I'm going to be calling my piece The Shadow of the Daisy. It's after the following Wordsworth quote:
What's best about it is that it actually plays fairly well to one of the main aspects of the novel I'm planning. More details on that in a future blog post, I think. But now for more quotes I liked that are related to the novel!Small service is true service while it lasts:
Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one:
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.
--Wordsworth, To a Child: Written in Her Album
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.
--Ralph W. Emerson, Journal: December 20, 1822
He discovereth deep things out of the darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
--Job 12:22
A corner draft fluttered the flame
And the white fever of temptation
Upswept its angel wings that cast
A cruciform shadow.
--Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
Out of the dusk a shadow,Why, yes, it is a fairly dark piece, why do you ask? Anyway, hope you enjoyed those quotes. If you'll excuse me, I should be getting to bed.
Then a spark;
Out of the clouds a silence,
Then a lark;
Out of the heart a rapture,
Then a pain;
Out of the dead, cold ashes,
Life again.
--John Banister Tabb, Evolution
'11 reviews: hot off the presses [2 more]
Note: These are copied out of Word. Any formatting problems are Blogger's fault, not mine.
12. Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
I’m going to preface this review by saying that I have never liked Dickens. I think his prose is way too florid, and he spends too much time talking about details no one cares about. Coming from the queen of overwriting and wordiness, that’s saying something. However, I felt jipped about not being assigned to read this book during the school year, and, seeing as it is a great classic, I decided to give Dickens a chance to redeem himself. I joined a group that was reading this for their choice book (which I ultimately regretted because my group sucked, but never mind that).
Tale of Two Cities is a novel of epic scope. As it follows the fates of all of its characters, it also seems to hold the fate of two whole countries—Britain and France—in the balance. Plus, it’s against the backdrop of the French Revolution, which is one of my favorite historical periods. However, besides the overarching story of history, Tale also follows the fate of a large ensemble cast of characters too large to get into in this review. If there was anything great about this novel, it was the sheer diversity and depth to its characters, which almost compensates for the shitty prose style.
The two main characters are Charles Darnay and Sidney Carton, the first a Frenchman, the latter an Englishman; both look remarkably alike, and yet they are starkly different people. Still, they share a love for one Lucie Mannette, the daughter of a long-time prisoner in the Bastille. That is the driving force behind most of their actions, which I won’t really get into too much because the plot is fairly well-known to most—and if you don’t know it, you should really read the book, because that is one of the other main attractions to reading it.
Overall, I’d recommend reading an abridged version if you don’t want to spend a ton of time on this book, because again, the prose style is lurid and gross. It’s the characters (with the exception of Darnay and Lucie, who are as dull as pasteboard) and the plot that make it a worthwhile read. Look out for Madame Defarge; she’s my absolute favorite, and she is definitely the strongest female character in my book.
(Tee hee, see what I did there?)
13. Where Angels Fear to Tread, E. M. Forster
I’ve been in love with E.M. Forster since reading Howard’s End. The prose style is brilliant, doing a great job of balancing a healthy amount of detail and description with actually propelling the plot forward. More than that, I love his characters, and I love the social commentary he does on class and love and idealism and just British-ness in general. He ranks up there with Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte as one of my favorite (classics) authors. :)
The novel is essentially a family drama, revolving around the Herritons: Mrs. Herriton, a sharp-witted woman who channels her intelligence towards making their family as middle-class as possible; Harriet, her spinster daughter, who is obnoxious, shrewish and moralistic; Phillip, her bachelor son, who is best described as a sort of detached, foppish intellectual with a love for Italy; and finally, the widowed Lilia Herriton, Mrs. Herriton’s daughter-in-law and the shame of the family. Lilia is a hopelessly silly and free-spirited woman who does not fit the oppressive Herriton middle-class-ish-ness, which worries the family because her ~scandalous behavior with men could easily reflect on them and Lilia’s daughter. In order to get her out of the way, the family packs Lilia off with one Caroline Abbott, who requires a companion on her trip to Italy. And all is well for the family for a time; from Lilia’s letters back, they even get the impression that she is “improving”. However, suddenly, without warning, the family receives word that Lilia plans to marry an Italian. Chaos ensues as the Herritons scramble to go to Italy and stop that rash, imprudent marriage in its tracks.
I did love this piece by Forster, as I expected to. It’s not as refined in its style as Howard’s End was, but I think he wrote this earlier, so that is fine in my mind. The one problem with it, of course, is inherent in almost all of Forster’s pieces: it’s annoyingly depressing. When the ending came, I wanted to throw my Kindle at the wall, I was that frustrated with two annoyingly stupid characters. (Luckily, I didn’t, as Kindles are expensive, you know.)
Ultimately, though, I think that giving the piece such a frustrating ending probably lent it more meaning than if it had had a happy ending. Thus, if you like this kind of thing, with hilariously absurd situations and social commentary on rigidity and class, I highly recommend Where Angels Fear to Tread. It’s a brilliant read.
I’m going to preface this review by saying that I have never liked Dickens. I think his prose is way too florid, and he spends too much time talking about details no one cares about. Coming from the queen of overwriting and wordiness, that’s saying something. However, I felt jipped about not being assigned to read this book during the school year, and, seeing as it is a great classic, I decided to give Dickens a chance to redeem himself. I joined a group that was reading this for their choice book (which I ultimately regretted because my group sucked, but never mind that).
Tale of Two Cities is a novel of epic scope. As it follows the fates of all of its characters, it also seems to hold the fate of two whole countries—Britain and France—in the balance. Plus, it’s against the backdrop of the French Revolution, which is one of my favorite historical periods. However, besides the overarching story of history, Tale also follows the fate of a large ensemble cast of characters too large to get into in this review. If there was anything great about this novel, it was the sheer diversity and depth to its characters, which almost compensates for the shitty prose style.
The two main characters are Charles Darnay and Sidney Carton, the first a Frenchman, the latter an Englishman; both look remarkably alike, and yet they are starkly different people. Still, they share a love for one Lucie Mannette, the daughter of a long-time prisoner in the Bastille. That is the driving force behind most of their actions, which I won’t really get into too much because the plot is fairly well-known to most—and if you don’t know it, you should really read the book, because that is one of the other main attractions to reading it.
Overall, I’d recommend reading an abridged version if you don’t want to spend a ton of time on this book, because again, the prose style is lurid and gross. It’s the characters (with the exception of Darnay and Lucie, who are as dull as pasteboard) and the plot that make it a worthwhile read. Look out for Madame Defarge; she’s my absolute favorite, and she is definitely the strongest female character in my book.
(Tee hee, see what I did there?)
13. Where Angels Fear to Tread, E. M. Forster
I’ve been in love with E.M. Forster since reading Howard’s End. The prose style is brilliant, doing a great job of balancing a healthy amount of detail and description with actually propelling the plot forward. More than that, I love his characters, and I love the social commentary he does on class and love and idealism and just British-ness in general. He ranks up there with Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte as one of my favorite (classics) authors. :)
The novel is essentially a family drama, revolving around the Herritons: Mrs. Herriton, a sharp-witted woman who channels her intelligence towards making their family as middle-class as possible; Harriet, her spinster daughter, who is obnoxious, shrewish and moralistic; Phillip, her bachelor son, who is best described as a sort of detached, foppish intellectual with a love for Italy; and finally, the widowed Lilia Herriton, Mrs. Herriton’s daughter-in-law and the shame of the family. Lilia is a hopelessly silly and free-spirited woman who does not fit the oppressive Herriton middle-class-ish-ness, which worries the family because her ~scandalous behavior with men could easily reflect on them and Lilia’s daughter. In order to get her out of the way, the family packs Lilia off with one Caroline Abbott, who requires a companion on her trip to Italy. And all is well for the family for a time; from Lilia’s letters back, they even get the impression that she is “improving”. However, suddenly, without warning, the family receives word that Lilia plans to marry an Italian. Chaos ensues as the Herritons scramble to go to Italy and stop that rash, imprudent marriage in its tracks.
I did love this piece by Forster, as I expected to. It’s not as refined in its style as Howard’s End was, but I think he wrote this earlier, so that is fine in my mind. The one problem with it, of course, is inherent in almost all of Forster’s pieces: it’s annoyingly depressing. When the ending came, I wanted to throw my Kindle at the wall, I was that frustrated with two annoyingly stupid characters. (Luckily, I didn’t, as Kindles are expensive, you know.)
Ultimately, though, I think that giving the piece such a frustrating ending probably lent it more meaning than if it had had a happy ending. Thus, if you like this kind of thing, with hilariously absurd situations and social commentary on rigidity and class, I highly recommend Where Angels Fear to Tread. It’s a brilliant read.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
'11 reviews: finally wiping out the backlog of reviews (last 2)
Note: As usual, copy-pasted. Any problems with formatting...blame Blogger, bitte.
10. Daisy Miller, Henry James
10. Daisy Miller, Henry James
Henry James was one of those crazy ex-patriots like T.S. Eliot who left the United States to live in Europe. This makes a very clear impact on the themes and stuff of Daisy Miller.
The main character is a man named Winterbourne; like James, he used to live in the U.S., but also like James, he has been living in Europe so long that he’s almost forgotten how Americans behave. Enter Daisy Miller, a beautiful, exuberant American girl. She catches his interest and sparks his imagination, and they enter into a kind of unconventional courtship. However, their relationship is soon compromised by Daisy’s outrageously (for the times, anyway…) flirtatious manner towards other men, which shocks the elite of Europe and other American ex-patriots. Drama ensues as she is gradually shunned from all respectable society. I feel like I’m always saying “drama ensues”, ha ha—I guess it’s a common plot thread.
Essentially, this is a novella about manners, much in the same vein as Edith Wharton. It’s kind of funny, because Daisy Miller is so similar to Wharton’s House of Mirth in terms of the whole “flirty with men, unjustly shunned by society” theme, and yet despite James and Wharton being BFFs, they hated each other’s work.
Anyway, I just kinda like history and like stuff that looks at how societal mores have changed over time and such, but that sort of thing can also be incredibly depressing. I do recommend Daisy Miller, but I don’t think it’s necessarily to everyone’s taste.
11. Looking for Alaska, John Green
Recently, I had the following exchange with a friend.
FRIEND: excitedly blah blah blah, John Green, blah blah blah…
ME: …who’s John Green?
FRIEND: stops for a moment to give me an incredulous look What? You’ve never read John Green?!
ME: …um, no.
FRIEND: OMG YOU NEED TO RIGHT NOW BLAH BLAH BLAH…
So I begged my dad to buy me a copy of Looking for Alaska, and he agreed. I was originally going to read it on the plane to *college visiting* and all that, but I really wanted to try it out.
Looking for Alaska begins with teenager Miles Halter leaving home to go to the Culver Creek Prep School in Alabama. His purpose for leaving? To seek the “Great Perhaps”, as described by the last words of poet François Rabelais. Something to note about Miles: his hobby is memorizing the last words of famous people.
When he arrives at Culver Creek, the first acquaintances he makes are the most important in shaping his future friendships—his roommate, Chip Martin (nicknamed “the Colonel”), and the beautiful, enigmatic Alaska Young down the hall. Through his various new experiences at school, ranging from the academic (his religious studies class), to the more personal (forming meaningful relationships, smoking, getting drunk, having his first sexual encounter, and ultimately falling in love), we follow along for the ride as Miles dives headfirst into finding his Great Perhaps and, in the process, growing up and maturing.
I thought this was an interesting book, but to me, it falls into the same category as Catcher in the Rye (for they are very similar thematically, in some ways): well-written, engaging, and verging on the profound—but at the end of the day, not the book for me. Though I did enjoy the ride, I never was able to fully get into Miles’s head and really feel for the characters. Maybe I’m just a prude, but I never saw the need for all the completely illegal drug stuff the characters did throughout the book, in terms of drinking and smoking and stuff, and I didn’t really like the implication that everyone did those things at the school. :/ I do think that John Green does a good job of showing that he, as the author, feels the kids are being reckless and irresponsible, especially given the ending. It wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read, but it certainly keeps you interested and reading. I do think I’ll be reading more John Green, though, so stay tuned for that. ;)
Books Read: An Index Post
This is my index post for all of the books I've read. I figure the end of high school is like the end of an era and deserves something special to mark it.
2011
(Note: This year was the one I decided to attempt the 100 book challenge. So far, I've been failing miserably at it. I guess I don't read as much as I used to.)
1. Agnes Gray, Anne Bronte (review)
2. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (review)
3. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (review)
4. Master Harold...and the Boys, Athol Fugard (review)
5. Six Characters in Search of an Author, Luigi Pirandello (review)
6. True West, Sam Shepard (review)
7. Translations, Brian Friel (review)
8. A Simple Soul, Gustave Flaubert (review)
9. The Professor, Charlotte Bronte (review)
10. Daisy Miller, Henry James (review)
11. Looking for Alaska, John Green (review)
12. Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (review)
13. Where Angels Fear to Tread, E.M. Forster (review)
13.5 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling (reread)
14. Cracking the AP Calculus AB/BC Exams, Princeton Review (why the hell would I review this?!)
Currently reading:
Villette (Charlotte Bronte), This Side of Paradise (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Thud! (Terry Pratchett)
2011
(Note: This year was the one I decided to attempt the 100 book challenge. So far, I've been failing miserably at it. I guess I don't read as much as I used to.)
1. Agnes Gray, Anne Bronte (review)
2. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (review)
3. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (review)
4. Master Harold...and the Boys, Athol Fugard (review)
5. Six Characters in Search of an Author, Luigi Pirandello (review)
6. True West, Sam Shepard (review)
7. Translations, Brian Friel (review)
8. A Simple Soul, Gustave Flaubert (review)
9. The Professor, Charlotte Bronte (review)
10. Daisy Miller, Henry James (review)
11. Looking for Alaska, John Green (review)
12. Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (review)
13. Where Angels Fear to Tread, E.M. Forster (review)
13.5 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling (reread)
14. Cracking the AP Calculus AB/BC Exams, Princeton Review (why the hell would I review this?!)
Currently reading:
Villette (Charlotte Bronte), This Side of Paradise (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Thud! (Terry Pratchett)
Monday, June 20, 2011
List of things
So I have something to post. Yay? Anyway, here's a list of things I'm working on at the moment.
- Placement tests
Seriously, I've been such a procrastinator on this. Explanation: the university I'm going to in the fall requires us to take placement exams in math, physics, and writing so they can put us into something remedial if we stink or, best case scenario, we get to test out of stuff! I'm hoping to do really well on the math, and I'm hoping to not utterly fail the physics. Oh, and I'm going to take the optional placement exam for chemistry so I can hopefully test into organic chemistry!
Of course, since only about a maximum of 10 people test out in each category each year, it's pretty stiff competition, so *crosses fingers*. - JulNo Outline
I've been sitting on this way too long, but I started my outline last night. It's going, um, okay. I think I have an overall idea where everything is going; it's just the nitty-gritty that's eluding me. - Library work
I seriously have no idea why I decided to intern there this summer. I don't need the service, and it's kind of exhausting. I'm basically going in almost every day. I guess it counts as my summer job, except without the monetary benefit. - Reading books
I'm so hopelessly behind on my 100 books thing, it's not even funny. At the moment, I'm reading Charlotte Bronte's Villette on my Kindle, and all the French is starting to piss me off and make me wish I'd taken that instead of German. I've also downloaded some other stuff, though, like Prisoner of Zenda and Vanity Fair (which are, hopefully, completely in English).
Also, I'm planning on taking some time to read a bunch of Shakespearean plays. I mean, it's one thing to blame my school for not having any Shakespeare, but I've graduated high school. It's entirely on my own shoulders to learn now. Not that it wasn't before; it's just more clear now that that's the case.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
On Portal 2 and my nearly non-existent gaming cred
It's been a while now, but Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers recently finished Portal 2 on his gaming channel. I highly recommend watching Hank play both Portal and Portal 2; both are brilliant.
Side note: I actually prefer Hank's gaming channel to the main Vlogbrothers channel because it's more...spontaneous, maybe? I feel like the Vlogbrothers try a little too hard to be profound sometimes. (Maybe that's projection on my part. :D)
I've never really been much of a gamer. My eye-hand coordination leaves a lot to be desired, and I've never really had the time (or, for that matter, the spare cash) necessary to really get into gaming. Mostly, though, I just like watching people play games than actually playing them. That possibly says something profound about me, about me being a spectator who narrates life as a story rather than living it like Andrew on Buffy (speaking of, I just finished S7! :D), but that's probably a subject for another blog post.
And wow. I was so...well, touched by the end of Portal 2. The turret opera was so beautiful and appropriate, and tears were literally streaming down my cheeks, about as much as I bawled at the end of Toy Story 3. That's saying something. And SPAAAAACE. So epic.
Is that weird? Is it weird that a game could be so profound? It must be, to you. Let me give an example.
That is life. Life is filled with pain and suffering. Hell, life is pain--well, most of the time, anyway. I've realized that recently. Nihilism suggests that the only way to not feel that pain anymore is to die. But then why do we live? Why do we keep going despite that?
Cave Johnson has the answer, a semi-existentialist answer: the point to life is to take all that pain and give it the middle finger, to derive satisfaction from the rejection of pain.
AND I'm being way too pretentiously profound again. I could probably think of more ponderings along those lines, but for now, that's all I've got.
Side note: I actually prefer Hank's gaming channel to the main Vlogbrothers channel because it's more...spontaneous, maybe? I feel like the Vlogbrothers try a little too hard to be profound sometimes. (Maybe that's projection on my part. :D)
I've never really been much of a gamer. My eye-hand coordination leaves a lot to be desired, and I've never really had the time (or, for that matter, the spare cash) necessary to really get into gaming. Mostly, though, I just like watching people play games than actually playing them. That possibly says something profound about me, about me being a spectator who narrates life as a story rather than living it like Andrew on Buffy (speaking of, I just finished S7! :D), but that's probably a subject for another blog post.
And wow. I was so...well, touched by the end of Portal 2. The turret opera was so beautiful and appropriate, and tears were literally streaming down my cheeks, about as much as I bawled at the end of Toy Story 3. That's saying something. And SPAAAAACE. So epic.
Is that weird? Is it weird that a game could be so profound? It must be, to you. Let me give an example.
Cave Johnson: When life gives you lemons? Don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's going to burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!
GLaDOS: Burning people! He says what we're all thinking!
That is life. Life is filled with pain and suffering. Hell, life is pain--well, most of the time, anyway. I've realized that recently. Nihilism suggests that the only way to not feel that pain anymore is to die. But then why do we live? Why do we keep going despite that?
Cave Johnson has the answer, a semi-existentialist answer: the point to life is to take all that pain and give it the middle finger, to derive satisfaction from the rejection of pain.
AND I'm being way too pretentiously profound again. I could probably think of more ponderings along those lines, but for now, that's all I've got.
Monday, May 23, 2011
'11 reviews: in which I finally figure out how to use my Kindle
Note: Copy-pasted from Word. Any formatting issues are not my fault, they are Blogger's.
8. A Simple Soul, Gustave Flaubert
Story time: my uncle is obsessed with electronics, so when I got into his alma mater, he was so proud that the most logical thing to do in his mind was to buy me a Kindle! So this novelette has the honor of being the first thing I read off my Kindle. All classics are free (!), so reading books just got a whole lot more convenient.
Flaubert has the honor of being one of my favorite (classics) authors. I found a beautiful old copy of Madame Bovary at the local library, hardbound and everything, last year, and it was a great read, though very sad. No surprise, A Simple Soul is also extremely depressing. It follows the life of a servant named Felicitee who, for most of her life, serves a widow with one son and one daughter. She pours her life into successively loving one being after another: first a young man, then her patroness’s daughter and son, then her own nephew, then a parrot. One after another, these beings die and leave her behind. Throughout, she keeps a love of God in her heart, but even he seems to desert her at the end, when she is left to die a pauper, deaf, blinded—agonizingly slowly. Yeah, I know, SPOILERS. The story’s really not about the plot, though, as Felicitee’s life is not very interesting and verges on the pathetic; it’s more about the meaninglessness of always living your life for others and never for yourself.
I much preferred Madame Bovary because…well, it had more plot. I liked this short piece, and it’s very self-contained, but I’d recommend Madame Bovary as a more interesting read.
9. The Professor, Charlotte Bronte
Remember for later: this was another book I read on my Kindle.
I love Jane Eyre. It’s my favorite (classic) book ever, and I want to watch the new movie! As in, REALLY badly!!! Anyway, The Professor, in my opinion, is not as good as Jane Eyre. This can’t be helped, as this was the novel Charlotte was working on when she died, so it’s not really complete; it shows, too, as the story kind of gets bogged down in preaching at some points, and it carries on too far past the wedding (SPOILER :P) at the end. It also has some annoying bits that would definitely not be considered PC today. For example, the narrator occasionally implies that only Protestants can be good and moral, and that anyone who is Catholic is sly and deceitful and sinful and all that. Um, yeah....
But what is the book about? Essentially, it follows a man named William Crimsworth, who after leaving college breaks his connections with his condescending richer relatives (class conflict commentary FTW) and makes up his mind to make his own way in the world, first turning to his long-lost brother to give him a start in trade. Obviously, given the title, that doesn’t work out, but he manages to get a position teaching at a school in Brussels, where he becomes a professor (essentially, a teacher of Latin and English). There, we follow his path towards becoming successful by hard work, both financially and in love.
If you look at it in the way you would a first draft, then it’s an amazing book; every plot twist is brilliant, and if you’re like me, you find yourself wholeheartedly shipping the main couple by the end. I would recommend if you read this and don’t know French, though, that you not get the Kindle free version, and that you not get a crappy edition without notes. It was assumed at the time that educated people all knew French, so when William gets to Brussels, basically every few lines, Charlotte will randomly switch to people talking in French in the book WITH NO TRANSLATION PROVIDED. You seriously don’t want to end up chained to Google Translate while reading like I was. -_-
Otherwise, I quite enjoyed The Professor, though not as much as I expected to. I do still recommend it.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
'11 reviews: 5 quickies ;)
Note: any formatting problems, please, blame Blogger. Also, please note these were cross-posted, so some of what I say may be kind of outdated at this point.
3. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
This was a book I had to read for school; I was set to hate it for various silly reasons: this book was a substitution that only my teacher made for Tale of Two Cities (the traditional senior book at my school), we were supposed to read it and understand all its nuances after one weekend, etc. A lot of whiny reasons on my part, let’s just leave it at that.
However, I ended up really liking this book. Essentially, the novel is framed around a woman named Janie telling her friend, Phoebe, about her life. I loved following the epic journey she made through her experiences with love and life in her three marriages, ultimately coming into her own as an independent, strong woman whom you could really sympathize with.
Anyway, I really enjoyed this book, though I thought some of the symbolism completely beat you over the head. It was my first experience with a novel from the Harlem Renaissance period—definitely unique stylistically. It’s a bit of a surprise, but I recommend it very highly.
4. Master Harold…and the Boys, Athol Fugard
This was a play I had to read for school. It might be a little cheap for me to be counting all four plays we read, but they’re all separate works, so *shrug*.
The play looks at race relations in South Africa during the apartheid period and how lingering racism negatively affects the chances for a more equal future relationship. It’s a pretty heavy piece; the ending left me crying—but, then again, books make me cry often enough that that means very little. :P I’d probably recommend it if you’re feeling in a serious turn of mind, but personally, I would never have read it on my own. It just strikes me as the kind of play that’s more interesting in an academic context.
5. Six Characters in Search of an Author, Luigi Pirandello
The second in the four play sequence I had to read for school. Stupid IB kids. *shakes fist*
Anyway, the title is fairly self-explanatory as to what the play is about: six characters in an unfinished play show up at a theater and ask the director to write their story and perform it. It’s in the same line as Camus and Beckett and that whole “existentialist/absurdist/whatever-ist” in-crowd.
I did not like this play, partly because absurdism ticks me off. I’ve never really cared for it because, while absurdism has its appeal, it’s always struck me as the easy way out to say that we’ll never reach the green light, but we keep rowing towards it regardless—blah blah blah, life is pointless, yeah, we get it. But I like to think there’s more purpose in the world than that.
Of course, I also might not have liked it because I had no clue what was going on for most of the play…nah, that can’t be it. Anyway, sorry, but I don’t recommend this play at all.
6. True West, Sam Shepard
The third in the four play sequence I had to read for school.
This play follows the relationship between two brothers, Lee and Austin, who gradually drive one another to insanity through their interactions. The premise of the play has Austin, your conventional preppy Ivy League stereotype, housesitting for their mother while she visits Alaska, in order that he may write an important screenplay for Hollywood in peace; Lee is your typical “desert rat”, who makes his living through stealing and other illegal ventures, drops in on his brother, ostensibly with the intention of robbing the suburban neighborhood on the sly. Everything is turned on its head, though, when the producer Austin is writing for loses a gamble to Lee at golf and promises the commission for a screenplay to Lee instead of Austin; crazy hijinks ensue as the two brothers try to fulfill one another’s roles and, essentially, become one another.
I highly recommend this play. It’s brilliant and funny and insightful, and the film version with John Malkovich is made of win! Seriously, if you haven’t read this before, go now. :D
7. Translations, Brian Friel
The fourth (and final!) play in the four play sequence I had to read for school.
This play revolves around a hedge school in a small town in Ireland and the people who attend it regularly. The most notable of them: Hugh, the drunken schoolmaster; Manus, the lame son of the schoolmaster who helps out with teaching; Maire, the milkmaid and primary love interest of Manus; and Sarah, the sort of mute girl with a schoolgirl crush on Manus. The regular dynamic of the school is shook up, however, when Hugh’s long lost son Owen comes back to town as a translator for a regiment of English soldiers who are there to anglicize the names of Irish towns and geographical stuff for British maps. Of course, as in every story about Irish-English relations, ~drama ensues.
I liked this play, but as I don’t take Latin or Greek, many of the references in that language went over my head; Friel understands this, though, and tends to make it clear what he means even if you don’t know either language. It’s a little disconcerting, also, to have everyone in the play speaking English, even though ostensibly, you have your Irish people speaking Gaelic, your English people speaking English, and a select few (Hugh, Manus, and Owen) able to speak/understand both. Yeah, I know, it’s supposed to send a message about how we’re “all human” and that “fundamentally, we all speak the language of humanity” or whatever, but it’s still hard to suspend belief. I think it’s an interesting read, but also fairly predictable and absurd in terms of how it ends; the ending is supposed to be parallel to the beginning and all that, but I don’t know, I guess it just left me a little unsatisfied.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
'11 reviews: 2-in-1 deal, with a free play thrown in!
These are cross-posted, hence the copy-paste feel. Mostly included for completion purposes.
1. Agnes Gray, Anne Bronte
I’m fairly conventional about what I read, to be frank. I loved Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, but they were the only things I’d read by the Bronte sisters, and those are the best known among everything they wrote. Well, it’s justified for Emily, because that’s all she wrote, but that’s a whole ‘nother ballpark. Recently, I was told I was a bit of a book snob, so I thought I’d branch out a bit on my snobby-book-ness.
Now, Anne Bronte…let’s just say there’s a reason she’s the most overlooked of the sisters. Her prose style is pedantic, verging on the preachy, which irked me as I read; her plot and characters are dry, stale, and thoroughly unsympathetic. For the first half of the book, she explores some interesting social issues about how much was expected of governesses versus how little power they actually had, as well as, to some degree, class conflict and how little respect servants actually got at the time; some of the parallels to the modern day were very creepy. If she had stuck to that, I would have liked the book in the same way I like history, but it almost seems like she was obliged to stick in a romance that just bogged everything down. I wonder what made her feel the pressure to do that...
A study. The walls are lined by shelves, which are filled with books, set up in neat rows. ANNE is hunched over a writing desk, which is lit by sunlight steaming in from the nearby window; the desk is bare except for a neat stack of papers, the pages of a half-finished manuscript. CHARLOTTE watches her sister write in silence, nodding to herself as she reads along.
CHARLOTTE: pointedly, as though lecturing a child You know that you’re never gonna be able to actually sell copies of that social commentary crap, right?
Anne looks up from her work. She seems confused and turns to face her sister.
ANNE: But…. She pauses. But I’m giving insightful social commentary!
CHARLOTTE: So? NO ONE CARES. Trust me, I’m an expert. Unlike you, I’ve actually sold something. Anne looks hurt, and Charlotte hastily backtracks. Hey, now, don’t take that the wrong way. Just take this as good sisterly advice. Put a romance in, and then people might actually take a look at it.
ANNE: quietly B-but I’m a shy recluse, and I don’t know anything about that.
CHARLOTTE: Too bad. Make something up.
ANNE: Make…?
CHARLOTTE: She makes an impatient hand gesture. It’s fiction, not real life, dumbass.
ANNE: …okay, if you think so.
She takes one last look at the partly written on page in front of her and, sighing, crumples it up, tossing it over her shoulder. The ball of paper falls to the ground.
CHARLOTTE: There, see? We’ll make a real author of you yet!
*cough* Anyway, so Anne Agnes ends up spending the latter half of the novel mostly moping around about how she can’t get the guy she wants because she has no backbone and how pious and good he is and how she will never have a chance with him because…blah blah blah, I don’t care, wimp. Ugh. My biggest problem with the latter half is that the guy she falls for is a complete spineless wimp, too. I guess they deserve each other. Overall, I thought it was okay, but it definitely deteriorates in the second half.
2. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
I found this book on my dad’s shelf and had vaguely heard of it, so I gave it a read. It became obvious pretty quickly that this was the kind of book you either love or hate with a passion. The best way to describe this book is as a sort of modern day Gulliver’s Travels, except with a thoroughly annoying, irredeemable protagonist.
Allow me to introduce Ignatius J. Reilly: a lazy, whiny self-professed philosopher obsessed with the writings of Boethius, deeply moralistic and worshipper of the goddess Fortuna, a frequent movie-goer and fat slob—a man of infinite contradictions. Despite his ~superior intellect, he has no practical skills, so he continues to mooch off his mom while “working” on a book on Boethius. When she gets drunk one night, however, and crashes the family car into a building, she finds her dead husband’s life insurance isn’t enough to pay for the damages, so she forces Ignatius to go out and find a job. That’s just an excuse, though, for the many misadventures that we find our anti-hero Ignatius being entangled in throughout the rest of the novel, all against the backdrop of the crazy city of New Orleans, where insane subplots abound and no one ever behaves quite how you’d expect. By the end, all the characters have forgotten about their original motivations, so don’t worry if you do, too.
I liked the book, but I thought a lot of the humor was either dated or fell flat. When it was funny, though, it was very funny, as in hilariously, absurdly laugh-out-loud funny. Despite never liking Ignatius, I did root for him by the end, and the ending, though not happy per se, was imminently satisfying. I do recommend giving the book a try, but I can also see it not being to everyone’s tastes.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Internet, meet your newest blogger!
Welcome to my first post here! It's one of many blogs I've started and tried to keep up with, so let's see if I can keep this one better updated. I'll start with a quote, since I do need a better place than my Facebook page to keep track of all the quotes I like.
Read the entirety of Self-Reliance here.
I can remember reading Thoreau's Walden in tenth grade English class and spending all year on it. I hated that book. But it's a little weird, because I do like some Transcendentalist ideas, and I freaking love Emerson. I'd expound on that, but I think I'll save it for a future post.
The reason for this particular quote is, of course, the blog's title. I personally believe in consistency; I try my damnedest in life to be a consistent person in what I do, in how I deal with people, in everything I can. Like everyone else, of course, I can be a hypocrite--it's human nature--but I try not to be. Perhaps it is a foolish consistency, but if I do not hold on to that, how is anything that I do more than just the erratic workings of the universe? Shouldn't I be more purposeful and thus...consistent?
I know, I know, that's not exactly what Emerson was talking about here; I got onto my own little tangent. Regardless, I revel in the idea of being consistent. And that is why this blog is called what it is. (:
Some things to expect in future from this blog:
Until then, good night.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Read the entirety of Self-Reliance here.
I can remember reading Thoreau's Walden in tenth grade English class and spending all year on it. I hated that book. But it's a little weird, because I do like some Transcendentalist ideas, and I freaking love Emerson. I'd expound on that, but I think I'll save it for a future post.
The reason for this particular quote is, of course, the blog's title. I personally believe in consistency; I try my damnedest in life to be a consistent person in what I do, in how I deal with people, in everything I can. Like everyone else, of course, I can be a hypocrite--it's human nature--but I try not to be. Perhaps it is a foolish consistency, but if I do not hold on to that, how is anything that I do more than just the erratic workings of the universe? Shouldn't I be more purposeful and thus...consistent?
I know, I know, that's not exactly what Emerson was talking about here; I got onto my own little tangent. Regardless, I revel in the idea of being consistent. And that is why this blog is called what it is. (:
Some things to expect in future from this blog:
- Song analysis! I listen to my iPod too much for my own good, so I read too much into my music. I've never been particularly musically astute, but the words? Heck yeah, you're gonna be ripped apart when I listen to you!
- Book reviews! I'm working on a 100 book meme that I started for another blog that's kind of inactive at the moment, so I might cross-post that.
- School stuff! Next year, I won't have my parents for that kind of ranty goodness at all hours, so it will probably go here next year instead.
- Weird ramblings! See the above post.
- Science! There's so much cool stuff that's going on out there, it just needs to be talked about sometimes.
- Writing! Because I still do this, and I plan on doing JulNo again this summer. I'm working on fanfic again, and I have a brand spankin' new idea for something to write. Entirely new, no longer about the "Clare Arbor" 'verse. It's gonna be awesome!
- And hopefully much, much more!
Until then, good night.
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