Untitled

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I'm not wrong

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Got all the important ones

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Mmmm, pizza

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First prompt

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I'm excited about this!

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#7 1984

After reading the diary of a girl who survived the Holocaust, reading about a distopian future was a scary thing. The world could easily tip to the world that we saw in 1984. It wasn’t by accident that it was written in such a way that even though the years have changed, the same fears don’t. It’s eerie to think that this could still happen because there is so much resemblance  to the things we already see happening today. Big Brother is watching and it’s not a good thing. With the NSA being all NSA like, what’s to stop anyone from constantly watching us and then arresting us for our thoughts? Sure it might be a little extreme, but that could be a possible future for the world. It’s a scary place out there and there isn’t much that could change it if no one decides to use their brain; and unfortunately it’s already happening.

People are beginning to not be able to communicate with each other and have stopped reading. The educational system is shattering under the weight of trying to look like they’re teaching people, and not actually teaching any body anything. People are becoming lazy automatons that’ll do anything someone says because they won’t have to work for it. Everyone is becoming complacent and that is exactly what gives rise to worlds like that in 1984. Maybe I’m just getting riled up because I read a dystopian book, but I think we’re starting to head down that path and it’s slowly going to eat us up until we have no freedom left.

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#6 The Diary of a Young Girl

Nothing to make you remember that you live in a crazy fucked up world then reading the diary of a young girl who was hiding from the Germans during WWII. Poor Anne had to sit in a cramped two floor hidden apartment with seven other people. Not to mention that she had just become a teenager. It’s hard enough for a girl to have to figure out who she is when her country isn’t a war, let alone when forced into hiding.

Now to make things seem just a little brighter, there is the happy thought that Anne did get what she wanted in a way. She got to live on after her death with her written words. But it was so heart breaking to read about her optimism and her planning her future when you know just what is going to happen to her. It seems like thought she was never famous in life, the account of it had made her into the poster child for the true victims of war: the innocents. Anne was guilty of nothing other than being a teenager. She just wanted to grow up and figure out her life like any other kid wants to. Unfortunately that miserable time was spent in hiding.

Maybe the world should rethink its priorities. The world has become a more scary and more fucked up place than the world that Anne knew. And her in America, we’re kept under a bell jar to keep all the bad things out. Sure terrible things leak in sometimes, but most people are still ignorant of all the fucked up things that are happening on our generations watch. Maybe we should all take a lesson from Anne and learn to live in peace, after all, she still believed that everyone was good on the inside.

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#5 Cleopatra; A Life

While everybody thinks they know Cleopatra, a controversial figure without all the propaganda, she was actually much more than history gave her credit for. Part that is do to a lack of written history surviving from her time, to several of her enemies writing her “history” (*cough* propaganda *cough*). Stacy Schiff gave her account of Cleopatra’s history, at least what she was able to discern from her research.

Now she did preface the book with the disclaimer that a lot of Cleopatra’s history wasn’t exactly well cronacled and a lot of what people know of Cleopatra is really just myth. She attempted to keep literary hyperbole out of it as much as possible as well as dramatic filler. But seeing how the author is a woman, there is a very strong feminine bias to the whole biography that I picked up on right away. (Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Cleopatra lived in a time when women were silent wives and an educated woman was dangerous.)

Now getting past the fact that this is the first biography that I managed to schlep through for pleasure, it was actually a really interesting read. Cleopatra was fascinating and wildly blown out of proportion. She was actually a great politician as well as a patriot for Egypt and Alexandria. She did nothing accidentally, that included the ancient tradition of killing one’s own family members to cement their hold on the throne; something the Ptolemy’s were very good at. Cleopatra was neither the first in her name nor the first in murdering most of her close family. But she was the first Ptolemy to bring Alexandria out of civil war and to skillfully keep the Romans from coming up and causing problems in Egypt. Unafraid to go toe to toe with a Roman she was very good at manipulating them and getting what was best for Alexandria. She was educated and independent, exactly what Roman men were afraid of back then. Hence why she went down in history as a slut who’s only hold on men was her body. Everyone discounted her brain, political skill, and oratorical skills that made her equal to the men she was dealing with all the time in Rome. Not to mention that Alexandria was way ahead of the pack when it came to equal rights for women, they had more power in Alexandria than they had in “civilized” Rome. Anti-woman Propaganda I Say!

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#4 The Scarlet Letter

Hola Chicas, I have just finished my fourth book in my goal to tackle the unread books on my bookshelf, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. Interesting book and I could not have wished for a more entertaining read at the moment. This book is rife with all the best things a book could be filled with, maybe that’s why it’s a classic novel taught in high schools across America. Though reading it for pleasure has made it an immensely more pleasurable experience for me than it ever could have been if I was reading it for school.

The one thing that keeps popping up with the reading of this particular novel is the question of why I didn’t read this in high school. The educational system has failed me, that’s why. Anyway I personally loved this novel and didn’t think that a novel like this could touch me so dearly and make me love it, except for the fact that Bram Stoker’s Dracula already taught me that was possible. Any-who, I loved Hester Prynne, I couldn’t think of a better heroine for a story like this because she never once tried to fight what happened to her. She bore it all and showed amazing strength and will of character. No one can doubt the strength of that woman having to bear a Puritanical punishment without complaint and with rebellion. But Pearl is a devil and a half until she finds out who her real dad is.

On the topic of Pearl’s dad, was anyone else able to tell right off the bat who he was? I mean it was as clear as day during that whole standing in front of the colony thing. He was the only one acting nervous and uncomfortable while she was being punished and questioned. It was like a giant billboard for anyone who read it. Jeez man, learn to cover up your guilt better than that.

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#3 The Call of the Wild

Jack London’s The Call of the Wild is nothing short of an amazing piece of literary work. It was beautifully written and really puts you into the perspective of a dog who was kidnapped, beaten, forced into being a sled dog, abused, and then being rescued before having his heart broken and joining a wolf pack. It’s insane how much you can actually feel for this dog. I mean animals automatically get a vote of empathy from anyone with a heart, but this particular novel, while short, packs a whallop.

Buck is such a strong character, despite being a dog, and has probably become my hero. It love Buck, he has proven to have the sharpest instincts and the strongest will of any character I had ever encountered in my readings. If only this book was as widely read now as it was in the sixties. Oh well I guess a book has to give up the spotlight sooner or later, but this book shouldn’t have. This dog withstood horrible conditions and was able to do amazing things out of will to survive and even more amazing things out of love.

The two most powerful, and admittedly violent, scenes: Buck fighting Spitz for supremacy, the intensity of the fight and the strong will to live and fight and win is so strong that you find yourself rooting for Buck and have no problems with the gore and insane violence of the scene. The violence almost becomes ok because you know what is on the line and you know the stakes. The second, and arguably more powerful scene, was when Buck was avenging John Thorton by killing a surprising number of Yeehat Indians. You’ve watched Buck fall in love with John and do anything for him and to protect him. The heartbreak and anger that he feels becomes yours when you realize the slaughter that happened before Buck came along. His actions almost becomes justified as he slowly loses touch with the world of humans and gives into the ancient wolf instincts that were buried in his genetic code. The heartbreak was over the top and you felt for Buck. I still think he was the most amazing dog in the world, and the fact that he was based off of a real life dog that was really kidnapped when everyone decided to go up to the Yukon. It strikes a cord.

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#2 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

While I am a lifelong fan of technicolor, ruby slippers, and Judy Garland singing Over the Rainbow, there is no denying how amazing the original novel was. The happy part of this is that it is also a novel on the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge that I already owned.

While I could go on and on about the many differences between novel and movie, I think I’ll leave that for one of the many other reviews and analysis papers on the two. The novel in and of itself is this amazing and colorful world that is a separate being from the movie. Reading it made me realize just how many horrible things people can digest when its in a children’s story. I could imagine using that novel to read a child to sleep while simultaneously giving them nightmares about the terrifying things in the novel. Getting various body parts chopped off, dropping two beasts down a huge chasm, enslaving a race with an enslaved race, the list just goes on and on. The Wizard of Oz of Disney is a radically different Wizard than that of L. Frank Baum. But an equally good Wizard, which is to say a poor one.

In a world so full of magic and hope, it’s amazing just how calm and nonchalant people are about horrible things. Dorothy didn’t freak out when she was caught in the tornado, she just went to bed. And her Aunt and Uncle didn’t seem in the least bit concerned when Dorothy disappeared and were so calm when she suddenly reappeared. It’s kind of amazing what the grey state Kansas can do to the nerves. And I do mean the grey state, it was explicitly stated on the first page. Sorry Kansas, you got the short end of that stick. Even the the Scarecrow who got bran and nails shoved into his head got a better hand than you did, damn.

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#1. Catherine, Called Birdy

First up on my list of summer books is one that I am sure almost nobody has ever heard of before: Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman. Now while it may possibly be an unknown, it is one of those books that I tried to read once and was entirely unsuccessful in that attempt, but after years was finally able to read it completely and understand it. While I still have no desires to analyze literature for any purpose, personal or otherwise, I think some kind of reflection is necessary for Catherine, Called Birdy.

This particular novel is set during those wonderful Medieval Times when there were knights and manors and whole villages under the command of one person who was under the command of someone else. Catherine, Called Birdy is the diary of the daughter of a knight who is wholly unsatisfied with the life of being a knight’s daughter. She spends the whole novel avoiding marriage and the duties that she is supposed to do while trying to find out who she actually is. Everyone is always telling her to be her, which she could never figure out what anybody meant.

This coming of age story is so ordinary that it makes Catherine such a relatable character because she is just another normal fourteen year old. The times may be different but the struggles of being a teenager are the same. Watching her grow up is like reliving teenage years and is really only a good read when you’re still a teenager. The older you get the less you can relate to Catherine because she really is just another angst ridden teenager.

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Fantasy, Fiction, and Romance, Oh My!

Well after catching up on Patrick Lenton and his attempts to complete the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge and then being disappointed when there was so little on Tumblr about it, I got a silly idea in my head. While I wouldn’t actually be able to do the RGRC for a while because that requires money and proximity to a good book store, I did think it would be nice to do what Patrick Lenton was doing. And he was reviewing good books.

I’ve just ended up finishing my first year of college and have three months to catch up on all the reading I didn’t do and re-read all of my favorite books that I really miss, I figured I could do small reviews on them too. Just to give me something interesting to do this summer other than stare and the same walls all day everyday. Besides books are meant to be shared and I want to share my books. Only downside is that I’ve been home for a week and have already read three books, so the first three reviews will be back to back and then will come on a basis of when I finish the actual books. Keep on the lookout for books now ;)

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