love, read, write

"So it goes."

And so, in the span of two days, I finish this rather simple book which, initially, seemed like Nothing Much. Yet here I am, writing a reflection of sorts because this book, in its narrative convulsions, has left some sort of metaphorical bruise on me. Perhaps it will go away quickly. For now, though, I can recall most of the feelings I had as I read through the novel.

Any war book, when written, should be handled with responsibility and knowledge. One must know the ins and outs of war and its repercussions because mass-slaughter is not a topic which should be dealt with in a light fashion. Vonnegut handles the issue wonderfully.

I feel, as I close this book, as if I am emerging from a long crusade (hah) or journey, as if I, too, have been alongside Billy Pilgrim during his many adventures of sorts. In the beginning, however, I had no idea where I was going. In fact, when I first began to read the first (and then the second, and then the third, and so on) chapter of the book, I thought this would be another boring war novel. The only reason I read past the first chapter was because the narrative wasn't too boring and there were quotes on the back cover proclaiming this book to be a "funny, sad, and delightful" book. (I guess quotes on the backs of books actually do things.)

As I read through the book, I mostly observed and read. Only when I closed the book did I stop to think about the overall message and the rather confusing aftertaste that this plot had left me. At first, I was confused. What did I just read? And then it slowly creeped on me how profound this book really is... And here I am, my memory of the book clear enough to create a puddle for me to splash around in as I write this review (or an excuse of a book review).

What I get out of this book, now, is the idea that life goes on ("so it goes"), death is not permanent (simply an illusion of time), and that any war is a children's crusade of blindly flailing soldiers who had, previously, been optometrists or doctors or professors or high school teachers. That war is simply the haphazard bringing-together of lost humans with eclectic thought-processes, ranging from the belief in Tralfamadore to a false sense of wisdom to useless patriotism. I know I may be very wrong, but these are my impressions.

Many ideas underscore the plot of this story. One of them is repeated multiple times in this book. It is, "So it goes." Perhaps it is now my favorite quote because it poignantly expresses everything in life. Well, someone died. This happened. Life ended. Life began. But what does it all mean? Nothing. The world goes on. So it goes.

This, to me, is a powerful message because it isn't just about "nobody cares what happens to you." It's the fact that there are greater forces in this world, as the Tralfamadore-aliens say, that govern what happens in life. It is not so much a matter of fate, destiny, or will, but simply fact. Time is an illusion in which we live and accept as reality, but what will happen will happen and what has happened has happened. "The moment is structured in that way." I love that line, too. It almost lifts the burden off of every second of life, every hesitating moment in which we reflect or look down at our toes and ask ourselves, "What am I doing right now?" and more importantly, "Am I doing the right thing?" Sometimes, the prospect of trying to do the "right things" in life is daunting, intimidating. It seems too lofty an expectation for feeble-minded humans to fulfill. Perhaps it is. And this book, Slaughterhouse Five, untangles those scary mysteries. Perhaps there is a right answer to life, a "best choice" to all decisions. But does it matter? What will happen will happen. The moment is structured that way. Each moment is. There is nothing we can do; we are who we are and we will do what we will do.

Vonnegut also touches on the idea of death and eternity. He says that life will run its course and that we will live a life that is eternal because once we exist, our existence will last to the infinities in every dimension. This is an idea which I, too, have contemplated in my own silences. To see it written in such an odd yet poignant way is exciting. It is true, I think. Our existence is affirmed by ourselves, in a way, and once we are here, we are here forever. Time, to us, is a one-dimensional one-way highway, but that does not mean that what has passed no longer exists and what will happen is yet to be made. (But that's just abstract theory-meddling.)

Another idea that Vonnegut underscores is that Billy Pilgrim is one representative of every soul in not just war but also life. We are all like Billy Pilgrim, like Roland Wary, like Paul Lazzaro, like Edgar Derby. We are all lost, groping for answers, tripping over our own thoughts. We are all afraid, searching for a friend, fearing loneliness, yet losing friends, running into tough luck. We are all unstable, lashing out in times of fear, promising ourselves protection while, at the core, being unsure of our own existence. We are all proud to some extent, trying to convince ourselves that we are in control, sometimes losing that confidence and realizing that we are victims to an intangible self-element which we will never quite understand.

The more I think about it, the more I like this book. I would rate it very highly, but I feel as if I should not rate this book. That it exists as it exists, and that you (yes, you), should pick it up and skim through it one day, perhaps a very detailed skim, so that you too can understand how beautiful this confusing narrative is.

It is also of interest that this book is written in a very matter-of-fact, light tone. Wikipedia calls it a satirical novel, and it is indeed a very satirical one. Mostly because it makes war such a "matter-of-fact" topic with such ridiculous inserts (especially Kilgore Trout's novels). How can these light, seemingly absurd details weigh into the topic of war and Billy Pilgrim's struggles? In exactly the way we view our own selves and their happenings. Vonnegut's narrative style creates such a tangled mop of ideas and happenings that it resembles closely how we try to deal with our own ridiculous lives. Funny, isn't it--the way we try to deal with the future as if we will be prepared for what will happen, when really, we know as much about what will happen tomorrow as we do about the beginning of the universe? Vonnegut's use of comedy solidifies the illusion of life and uncertainty and also how frivolous this entire "life" thing is. And, thus, the frivolity of "war." What will happen tomorrow? Nobody knows. Perhaps we'll live. Perhaps we'll die. So it goes.

Everything which happens in this book, seemingly sudden, seemingly ridiculous, seem to outline the very important fact that life is life and what happens happens. So it goes, Vonnegut says. So it goes.

Hello all!

So I've finally gotten around to reading the highly obsessed-over, rabies-inducing, Okay-ing worshipped young-adult-of-a-novel called The Fault in our Stars, known amongst almost every teen in America. Well, to be honest, it was mostly due to the incessant unavailability of the book in our library, having been checked out and put on hold and put on hold and put on hold until the library just couldn't take so many consecutive holds and desperately wrote "on hold for an immeasurable amount of time."
(Seriously.)

To be honest, TFIOS (I'm lazy and I'm referring to it as TFIOS and there's nothing you can do about it) was a disappointing book. To say the worst, it was not that amazing a book. Granted, I had read it after reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (I love Huck by the way) and The Great Gatsby, so it is in stark contrast with some of the best American novels of, well, America. But nevertheless, it was simply a young adult novel that had its twist of love and adventure and sarcasm, a hint of John Green's existential thoughts sprinkled here and there.
(I could quite literally hear John Green in some of those passages. I am serious. John. Green. As Augustus or Hazel.)
Long story short it's a love story about Hazel Grace and Augustus, who are both cancer patients. Hazel has terminal cancer and Augustus has "won" the battle against his cancer, now left with an amputated leg and a spunky heart. He charms Hazel at one of the Cancer Support Meetings and the story spirals from there. I can't really say much after that because well I can't tell you why, either.

TFIOS was supposed to make my cry. It really was. For some reason I've been losing all emotion in any sort of moving movie or story or whatever it may be. I was watching (to be perfectly on topic) one of the sadder episodes of BBC's Sherlock (behold, ladies and gentlemen, I am following the fads and obsessions of modern society), and I was quite literally trying to squeeze tears out of my eyes. I really was. Same with TFIOS. (At this point you all must know some way or another that there is a devastatingly sad part at a certain part of the book.) But to be honest, I didn't even know when the devastatingly sad part was supposed to be. I just kind of knew when I got there that sometime around now I should be crying and well, I didn't cry. Not a single drop.

Nevertheless I liked certain parts of the book because I am going through some medical plights right now and the emotions Hazel went through (especially the part when she feared that she was a "grenade") was so relatable that I actually squeezed a few tears there.
(But not the devastatingly sad part.)
(Nope.)

TFIOS is, to be generous, a 4 out of 5, and to be honest, a 3.5 out of 5. It was just another young adult novel to me, and perhaps it was the fact that I didn't bawl endlessly at the Devastatingly Sad Part that it didn't really do much to me.
Nevertheless I need to eat dinner now and I hope this was a good enough review because I don't quite feel like writing an in depth one for a young adult novel (I'm sorry).

Happy reading!

Wow! I realized, while scrolling through my blog, that I had left Outliers (an outstanding book) by Malcolm Gladwell unaddressed and simply noted with a supposed “midway check.” I am a little lazy at the moment to write a detailed blog-ly response to the book in my tone and my writing, but I am happy to provide you a book response I have written on GoodReads and also submitted as a Piece Of Writing to my own English teacher at school (haha).

Here it is. You can also find it here on Goodreads.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is a book taking a second and closer look at success in a different way than we usually dismiss it: why do people succeed? What makes people succeed? And is it really just hard work and grit that gets you to the top? In his bestselling book, Outliers, Gladwell takes a closer look at what really matters when it comes to success, and why it matters. The lives of successful men and women, whom he calls outliers—Steve Jobs, Robert Oppenheimer, Olympic class hockey players—are all dissected in this book in a way that you will look at success again at a different angle. He tells us why Asians seem to be better at math, why your culture matters when it comes to how likely a plane will crash, and why a man with an IQ higher than Einstein’s known IQ is working on a farm out in the country without a college degree. What is the real key to success, and what governs it? Gladwell makes an attempt at cracking the code, or at least figuring out a pattern to the infinite variety of success stories.
In the past, I have read one of Gladwell’s other bestselling novels, titled Blink. It is a book about snap judgments and first impressions, another quite interesting book researching the psychology of human behavior. In comparison with Outliers, however, it seems that Outliers rises above Blink in a way that it is much more applicable to our lives.
Outliers—and I hesitate to specify on the statistics or the ‘discoveries’ uncovered in this book to save your reading experience for later—is about success. It is something we all strive for, at least to some degree, and it is something that we have always thought of as that “thing” we get when we work hard, we spend time on it, and we ‘never give up.’ There is nothing morally wrong with this idea. In fact, it is a great motto to follow throughout your life. However, what lies between this idea of “incessant hard work” and real success is that evidence, lives, and research shows that it has never been only hard work that have gotten the people in the newspapers or TV where they are today. It is a combination of luck, of—yes—hard work, of cultural background, of your parents, of your childhood, and an infinite number of variables all entwined in such a way that in reality, success is neither predictable nor moldable. It is something that you might wish for but cannot create deliberately.
Many of the points Gladwell makes in this book, such as the 10,000 hour rule (stating that to become a professional, a true ‘master’ at a certain art or profession, you must have spent at least 10,000 hours doing that art or profession), have made a pretty deep impression on me as a reader. It really opened my eyes to the mystic monstrosity of the world and the forces of nature. Though that sounds quite cliché and otherworldy, reading Outliers really gives you an idea of how uncontrollable one’s future is and how much people have put behind a success story. Whoever you think of as successful—whether you take them for granted or not—have all had a difficult and arduous journey before it lasting for years longer than you might expect. Not only this, but Gladwell proves that luck plays a significant role in success. When you are born, such as what year and what month, are very crucial to your potential to reach success. (Reading about this the first time really astounded me. Olympic class hockey players, to give you an idea, are mostly born in January by a very disproportionate degree. Not only this, but successful men of the Silicon Valley have all been born somewhere around or between 1952 and 1958. It is an extremely interesting idea.) But what Gladwell also proves is that your luck isn’t sometimes just something of fate that you pray for, but rather a passing opportunity that one must be prepared to catch upon discovery. We can take away from this book the idea that by understanding your culture, spending time on your passions, and remembering to be persistent in what you do will help you get farther down the road towards success. In the end, it is passion, dedication, luck, grit, background, and persistence that takes you far enough to know that you are an outlier.

 

I have found that I have a liking for books that question the morality of man and such. Books that question what is taken for granted? They are quite mind-stimulating, to put it in a very odd phrase. It gets me thinking. I like that.

But putting all formal book reviews and wordy explanations aside, what I mean to say is READ OUTLIERS.

It is simply an amazing book that gives you a completely different angle on success and the road to it.

I will leave you there. Adieu.

 

Greetings, readers and writers of the world. I welcome you to my undernourished and famished blog.

Recently (today) I started reading Anthem by Ayn Rand, which I assure you is a very very interesting book, to say the very very least of it. It… hm… I have not quite finished formulating my thoughts on the book, due to the fact that I have only reached the halfway mark of the book. It, however, got me thinking even when I was traversing the first few pages. I think that reading the book will give me decisive opinions about the book and its content, but for now I will leave it with a question mark ?

Here is a writing response I wrote on a lonely blank Microsoft Word document once I got home (I was reading this book whilst waiting for my mother to finish doing her religious duties). I read it over and realized that it quite nicely summarizes what I have gotten out of the book so far.

I encourage you all to attempt to read at least the first page of this book (excluding the Author’s forward and Editor’s note because neither the Author’s forward nor the Editor’s note will get anybody remotely interested in reading the book. Though I must say, the Author’s forward was interesting considering it being an Author’s forward. But nevertheless what I mean to say is that you should read the first page of the actual book, Chapter One of Equality 7-2521).

  

  

A man once said, “Every man for himself.” But today, no man is for himself. No man is for the self. Man is for the society. Man is for others. Man is to do what other man is to do. Man is to smile, man is to laugh, but man is not to smile and laugh at what society thinks man should not smile and laugh at. Man is to do what man’s neighbor does, as long as man’s neighbor does what his neighbor does. Man is to think about his role in society. Man is to give up some ideals for the good of the other man, and man is to wonder if man should pursue his dreams or pursue money. Man is to think that he is living a life full of freedom and liberty and choice. Man is to live happy, man is to live free, and man is to live content. Man is not to think about why society is created. Man is not to question the rules in which all man follow. Man is allowed to dream big, but not dream far. Man is to assimilate into the crowd, and man is to stay that way, blending into the sea of monotonous unicolor revealing no personality and no opinion. Man is to think about what others might think of him, and man is to resist from doing his own wants which lay outside of the social norm. Man is to be social, but in the way society wants man to be. Man is to do what he thinks will make other like him. Man is to do what he thinks is thought of as normal. Man is to be normal. Man is to obey.

A man once asked a crowd, a crowd of supposed diversity, a crowd of many men, a crowd of individuals, a question. And such a question held not one answer, but many. Yet it was a question which required knowledge of the social norm, which required an answer which was open to many but accepting to one. It was a question which tested the very essence of Man, is Man for himself, or is Man for society? Is man for his own opinion, or is man for pleasing others?
A man once asked a crowd, a crowd of supposed diversity, a crowd of many men, a crowd of individuals, a question. The man blinked once and soon he was simply asking one man a question, and he replied with one answer. It was not any man, but Man. Man did not hesitate and Man did not think.
A man once asked a crowd, a crowd of supposed diversity, a crowd of many men, a crowd of individuals, a question—only to realize he was mistaken, for he was simply asking one question to one Man for one answer.

 

 

(Note: the Man and Society mentioned in my writing above do not correspond with the Man and Society in the book Anthem by Ayn Rand. Though it very closely relays the ideas of the society in the book, this writing is actually my thoughts and opinions on our society that we live in today.)

As you can tell by the sidebar, I am currently reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It's an extremely interesting book, and it's a shame I don't have so much time on my hands to just sit down and read it in one sitting. (Unless I want to give up some sleep. But at this point in the year, sleep is gold.)
Outliers is a non-fiction book debunking the myths about success. Actually, not really debunking myths, but rather clarifying some simple and innocent misconceptions a great majority of the public seems to have.

We're always taught that working hard will get us to success. A little bit of talent, yes, but working hard is the key. After all, if we just have talent, we can't improve on it or do anything without effort. Ef-fort.
What Gladwell does is splash some ice water on our faces and shakes us by the shoulders. No. Life does not work so simply. If anybody could succeed by hard work, by golly--there'd be a lot more people in the magazines and newspapers. (Did I really just say by golly. Let's pretend you didn't read that.)
(I kind of felt like it was appropriate, though.)
(...never mind.)
And it's true. Once you read Outliers, which I am in the process of doing, you realize there's so much more to success than just talent and hard work. No. It's a multitude of variables, and those variables are actually very surprising. It's not just your environment or your family, but what month you're born in, what year you're born in, where you live, and other crazy variables you'd think were just trivial attributes.

Outliers also has lots of snippets of "success stories," digging deeper into the ground and uncovering some mysterious reasons as to why these stories did become indeed success stories. As in, what is the real reason why Steve Jobs became Steve Jobs? Why are most Olympics hockey players in Canada born in January?

Honestly, it seems like a book for ambitious people who want to succeed by reading a book along the lines of "How to Succeed: A Guide to Ruling the World" or of the like, but this is in reality an extremely intriguing psychology book. And trust me, psychology is pretty interesting. It's us we're studying. The tiny cells in our own heads.

...and that was my Midway Check on Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (more like a quarterly check). I'm glad I was able to post this week.

Happy Reading!

Before I start talking about things actually relevant to the title of this post, let me designate a little prelude to let you in on some updates of my life.
So.
Yes. I am alive. I had, once again, fallen off the face of cyberspace and left all of you hanging there, wondering whether I was lost in the woods or floating around in a vacuum of nothingness. I apologize. But nevertheless, here I am, healthy and well and significantly less awake than I was the last time I posted on here!
I'm a bit preoccupied with my school schedules, as well as me studying for a certain subject test for a certain area of science that has a certain relation to living things and how they work, which is also consuming most of my time. More like, it's devouring most of my time. Also I've done this somewhat stupid thing called 'joining the cross country team,' which evidently leads to much tiredness, leg-soreness, and a lot less time. (But I actually kind of like it, so it's not that bad.)
(I am 36.7% sure you didn't understand that previous paragraph.)

But I know, it's no excuse to not-post-every-week, which is, after all, what this year's resolution was. I will try. I even have a notification on my phone set weekly for every Saturday at 4:00 PM. (Obviously I guiltily turn it off every week.)

...but on the bright side, I've read some books over the summer, and I'm reading an awesome book right now, and... well... nothing too bright, actually. Yeah. ...A lot less time apparently means less time for reading and writing. And I know, it's bad. Because I really, really want to learn to write well, like those virtuosos who make words fluid and dance and make you cry and all that awesome jazz. But according to Stephen King, whose words are sad but very true, "If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write."
So now, after reading On Writing by Stephen King, I am depressed every time I think of the fact that I don't have time to read. And honestly, it's not so much that I don't have time. Because I have time when I'm in the bathroom (which I know it's weird to say, but am I really the only one who reads in the bathroom?), on the bus, waiting in the doctor's office, waiting in general, and other in-between places like that. But more and more I find myself leaning more towards the digital than the analog, which makes me sad. And honestly I'm not as bad as some people who claim to not have read a book on their own since fifth grade (which I honestly don't understand how that even works) (and yes, somebody actually said this), but I still tell myself to read and not Internet (yes, I have used Internet as a verb, excuse my grammar). I still do read in the in-between places and other boring things, but I can sort of feel myself getting bored sometimes. And it's bad. I still love books, but now it's in between going on the Internet and reading a book.
(That was a terribly constructed paragraph. Oh, well.)
Okay. Let me pull the leash a bit so I don't stray too far off into the woods. So.
On Writing.
By Stephen King.

I've already introduced y'all to a quote of his, which if I were to waste post-space and restate it, would be "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write."

This book, I warn you all, is non-fiction. It is, entirely, and purely, non-fiction. But let me tell you another thing. It is, honest-to-God, non-fiction in disguise. It's as fiction (and by fiction I mean the tone of it) as Richard Peck and as entertaining as Harry Potter.
(Okay, maybe the Harry Potter thing was a bit of an inflation.)
On Writing is, as the title so succinctly states, about writing. It's about King's progression towards becoming a writer and about what he thinks each writer should know about writing. And putting this boring sentence aside, it is written in such a way that you forget you're reading non-fiction and you feel like you're reading a story. A story about Stephen King, only not Stephen King as some non-fictional author who wrote an autobiography for self-promotion, but as a Stephen King character who goes through hardships, funny moments, epiphanies, and life-changing events.
So yes, it's a good book. I'd recommend it to anybody who likes writing or wants to know how to write. Honestly, for anybody who likes reading.
Scratch that.
Just read it.

The book is divided into, to generalize, two parts. One is his autobiography. And trust me, it's not the sort where they talk about In 1940, he won the Nobel Literary Prize with his co-author Daniel Bob. In 1951, he sold one million copies of his book Hello. His wife and children then moved to Connecticut and has since lived there up to today. and other boring series-of-events. (By the way, none of that is true. I made it up on the spot.)
Rather, his autobiography is multiple snippets of his life that describe moments that affected his writing career in one way or another. The book starts out with him as a child imagining himself in a colorful circus scene in his aunt's garage and ending up injuring himself. Then the next snippet jumps to, for example, his babysitter, who exhibited really strange behavior (you're going to have to read to find out, heh). It follows him through his life as he gets into trouble in his high school (that part was pretty funny), as he graduates and struggles to find a living, as he works in a laundry-place to scrape some coins by to feed himself and his wife, as he struggles with drugs and alcohol, as he somehow manages to write with the encouragement of his wife, as he persists in his determination to get published onto a writer's magazine... and on and on. It's honestly really inspiring and not the least bit boring. I know it sounds bad. But honestly.

The second part is Stephen King directing us as readers (and writers) what to do and what not to even think about when writing. He talks about adverbs and the passive voice, about sentence structure and flow, and other important things in writing. This part is what might be boring for some, but for me, it was really helpful. So if you like writing, or you want to improve in writing, or you are interested in the art of writing, or whatever it is with writing that you have an interest, you should definitely try reading this book. He gives a lot of helpful tips. And it's not boring. I mean, I read it in two days. Which is practically record time, considering I read it after school started. (While it took me practically two weeks to read The Book Thief, for some really strange reason.)

(Heh. I read it so fast partly because it was a summer reading book due in two days. Long story. Basically, I already had two summer reading books read for school, but one of the books was on hold in the library on the day I had to bring it in, so I couldn't bring it to school for the summer-essay we had to write. I ended up kind of just speed-reading On Writing that weekend since I had that lying around in my house. Though now I'm glad that I did.)
(Hopefully that paragraph made sense.)


Reading On Writing sort of got me thinking. It made me think about success in general, as well as writing success. I think it's the experiences that you've had that contribute to the pool of thought in your brain, which will eventually make its way onto paper and find its way to success, whatever it is the word means to you. When you think about it, people who succeed (and not everybody) tend to have a dark history some time in their past. And by dark, I don't mean jail-time or anything like that. I mean, a death. Or financial hardships. Or an illness. Something that was life changing and kind of stopped you in your tracks, shook you by your shoulders, and screamed into your face. Something that changed the way you think, the way you life, the way you take things for granted.
I mean, honestly, it's up to you, as a reader, to agree or disagree with this. And it's also your definition of success and a person-of-success that it depends on. Whether your idea of success coincides with mine is something nobody shall know. But either way, On Writing got me thinking. It sort of inspired me, as well.
If you've read the book--and even if you haven't--Stephen King mentions some hardships he had with financial issues, with drugs and alcohol. It's not like he wanted to do it because he thought he'd look "cool." It was something he turned to because he felt like his life was so messed up and so doomed, because he was devastated in his failures and the deaths around him. (I believe it was just his mother, actually.) But he dragged himself on and continued to write, continued to pursue his passion. And it sounds weird, but as I sort of followed him through his writing as he traced his life again, I felt pity for him when he was hungover, sorrow for him when his wife told him he'd have to get back up unless he wanted her to move away with his children, and I felt this utter joy and pride when I read his breakthrough as he suddenly got an offer of a few ten thousand dollars. It tells me that all success is something we can't take for granted, even though they might be living in a mansion today. It sort of told me that yes, I can choose to become discouraged when I see someone so high up in success, but I can also think of what they did to get there, that everybody has a past that isn't as bright as the today, and that any dark present I may be in can lead up to successful future if I bring myself together and pull myself forward.

So yes. That's what I got from On Writing. After reading it, I had all this built up energy and excitement from reading about writing. I was nearly leaping out of the bed to start writing after I closed the book. Heh.

That's about it.

But you know what? Regarding three paragraphs ago (I don't know if those past two are even paragraphs) when I constructed quite a few potential run-on sentences to describe the inspiration I got from the book, I am currently reading a book that somewhat contradicts the "if-we-work-hard-we'll-get-to-success" idea. It's called Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. I've read another book of his, called Blink, and I've heard from my friend that The Tipping Point is also a good book, as well (also written by him). Outliers is a super-interesting (also non-fiction) book analyzing the success of people from different areas. Gladwell talks about how success might not just be hard work and grit, but also a significant amount of luck and perhaps a formula that these high-end people have in common. It's so intriguing. I'm serious. It's awesome. And you'd think the hockey players got there because they were better at hockey.
(You'll only get that if you've read the book.)

So yeah.
That's about it for today.

Toodles.



P.S. I forgot to note this, but recently I've fallen in love with metaphors and similes. Not the flowy old-fashioned Victorian style, but sharp and sarcastic metaphors and similes that Zusak and King use so well in their writing. Seriously. I need to frame their metaphors on my bedroom wall or something. They're so creatively colorful. I want that.

Many weeks have passed since my last post, again. [Insert over-exaggerated apologies here]

I am reading a new book titled “Nation” by Terry Pratchett right now. It reminds me of the book “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. I haven’t finished it yet (about 3/4ths through the book), but for sake of filling this post with something blogworthy, I will try to write a crude summary about the book so far. (Or, as the title suggests, a Review-thing.)

It’s written in the point of alternating characters, Mau and Ermintrude (in third person though). Mau and Ermintrude are from different “worlds”—while Mau is a boy from a tribe/island called the Nation, in a nearly unknown island that the Europeans called the “Mothering Sundays” island, Ermintrude is the daughter of a rich and wealthy man who has now risen to become king because of the many deaths caused by a plague (but she and her father have no idea of this because they’ve been travelling around the world). The book starts as Mau traveled to another island to cross into his manhood, a ritual that every boy did when he became of age, and Ermintrude was aboard a ship that was sailing back to the mainland to assume her position as princess (again, which she had no idea of). (This is the backdrop of the book. Don’t question it.)
Mau and Ermintrude, who had never met before and never knew each other, were suddenly clashed together in a gust of unfortunate fate as a great tsunami, “the great wave,” came over the Nation and the neighboring islands. Mau became the sole survivor due to his luck of being away from the island at the time, and Ermintrude became the only survivor on her ship (which was in the area of the tsunami just as it rose) as well. Mau, shaken by the sudden death of his family, the disappointment of not getting the newfound respect and glory of becoming a man, and the anger for him being the sole survivor, suddenly began to question the gods: did they exist? Why did they do this? What was the point of believing when they killed your entire country, the Nation? Are we just creating stories in our mind?
Meanwhile, Ermintrude, a girl brought up to be ‘prim and proper,’ is afraid and lonely but surprisingly strong in the sudden crash. She sees Mau washing away the bodies of the dead into the ocean, and finds relief that at least there is a ‘darkie,’ a ‘tribe boy’ to keep company. Soon, the two of them cross paths, they begin to find some life and hope, and sooner again, other survivors from other islands nearby begin to come and search for shelter and comfort. Mau, the only person left of the Nation, is the only one who knows the culture and history and rituals, and suddenly is overwhelmed with the responsibility of witholding the duties and cultures that the Nation had held for the past thousands of years. He hears the voice of the Grandfathers (the Nation’s great ancestors of the past) screaming at him to do ‘this and that’ to keep the gods near and dear, but Mau fights against this, losing faith in his gods by the minute.

And the rest you shall read in the book, which is quite good so far.

Happy Reading!

Okay. So I know. It’s a pretty quick post, considering I posted yesterday. It took me six hours to finish this book. Versus the practically two week long trek I took reading “The Book Thief” (due to my spotted schedule of reading those two weeks). Then again, I came home from the library and sat down on the couch and read the book (the book, referring to “Paper Towns”) straight until I finished, half because I was determined to move on to another book, half because I wanted to earn money (long story—basically I’m employed at a dollar an hour).
Paper Towns was basically one of those “I’m young and reckless” sort of books, with a bit of 'lessons' and 'morals' sewn in between. Kind of like the "Christopher Creed" book (I don't quite feel like remembering the title, or now that I do remember, typing it), though I liked the "Christopher Creed" book a lot more. It gave me a powerful message.

Books are often rated with the misconception that you are rating the general “good-ness” of the book. I believe that it is best fit that we should rate books on how we liked them rather than the general level or “good-ness” of it. Because then we think that we are great beings that have the right and power to look at a book objectively and rate it that way, when in truth, nobody can rate things objectively. It is humanly impossible. And I mean humanly in every way it can be interpreted.
So while Paper Towns may be a ‘high quality’ book or a ‘high level’ book, as in, it was written well and it appealed to the right audience, it had a strong tone and a nice plot—I am rating it regardless. I am rating it purely on how I enjoyed reading it.
This segues nice into my next element of this post…

Paper Towns.
By John Green.
(NERDFIGHTERS! :D)

One word to describe the book: Expectations
One sentence to describe the book: The people you know may not be the people they really are; the person you are may not be the person you think you are.
One quote to sum up the entire book:

“ ‘You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman […] –but I don’t give a shit, man, because you’re you. […] Just saying: stop thinking Ben should be you, and he needs to stop thinking you should be him, and y’all just chill the hell out.’ ”
--John Green, Paper Towns

Okay, I admit it. There were a few profane words in there, but hey, it’s a quote. I didn’t say it, Radar did. (Who, by the way, would be a great friend if he were real. If he were real. Sigh.)
If you could decipher the meaning (or at least the nuance) of the quote in between the ellipses and brackets and all, you should have noticed that the basic message of Radar (the character who is saying this quote) is that people think of others the way they think they are. But in reality, the “person I think you are” and the “person you really are” are two different people. And quite often, ‘the person you think your friends or family are’ turns out to reflect you more than it reflects the real ‘them.’ This is what I believe is the crux of the story, or, in this case, the message that John Green is trying to feebly toss from the pages.

And finally the actual summary of the book:
Quentin Jacobsen has loved Margo Roth Spiegelman ever since they were neighbors. From the beginning, her daring personality, her bravery, and her—pure awesomeness—never ceased to amaze him. The problem was, as they grew up, Margo flocked in with the cheerleaders and jocks, and Q became the Grammarian and sarcastic nerd. They’re still neighbors now, and it’s senior year of high school. Q never ceases to try to get glimpses of Margo at school whenever possible, and he is still hopelessly in love. Margo is known for her awesomeness, her strange stories, and mysterious disappearances. She is almost a legend, having run away from home to campaign TPing houses, to fleeing off to Mississippi and leaving only an ambiguous clue by eating all but the letters “MISP” in her alphabet soup. Then one day, when Margo climbs into Q’s room through his bedroom window, he is amazed, flattered, and utterly scared. But when she asks him to borrow his car and assist her on “righting a few wrongs,” he obliges before he can think twice about the consequences. After the mysterious night of adventures with the mysterious Margo, she disappears from the town, leaving clues that Q is sure were left for him. Having fallen even deeper into love with Margo’s strange but unique personality, he decides to go off on a reckless, twisted, crazy, yet awesome adventure to find his Margo—or at least the Margo that he thinks she is.



John Green talked about a few things in the book to us. One, obviously, is the expectations or rather, ideas, we have of others. I think that you are a nice, bubbly person, when in fact you are a quiet, contemplative person who doesn’t like to speak. Or perhaps I think you are very reserved and shy, when in fact you are full of creative ideas and passionate about spreading them. And when you start cross-referencing the “idea of someone” from different people’s points of view, you start getting an idea of not the person, but rather the people who are creating an idea of that person. For example, Lacey might think that Margo is a bubbly, outgoing person, while Q thinks that she is mysterious and beautiful. Ben thinks that she wants the world to think she’s in the middle and that she’s hiding back in Orlando. It all reflects them rather than Margo herself.
On that note, here is a nice quote that explains this. The wise words of Radar:

“ ‘I never knew you [Margo] until I got to know you through your clues,’ he says. ‘I like the clues more than I like you.’ ”
--John Green, Paper Towns

Another point that John Green is trying to say is the beauty of leaving. Or rather, the feeling of leaving. That sweet feeling you get when you leave, when you want to bid good-bye to a place that meant so much to you, and never come back.
…though I am only saying this through the words of John Green, because I have no idea what that feels like. To have the urge to leave a place that meant so much to you. Unfortunately, I’m not at that stage of life yet. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like leaving a place that meant a lot to me. Perhaps I’m being shallow. Perhaps I’m not. I have no idea.

He also drops in a metaphor of life. Grass. That we’re all interconnected, we’re linked to each other, but in the end, we not exactly are each other.

Additionally, he mentions in the beginning of the book, through Margo’s words, the ‘conventional way of life’ and how boring it just might be. School, college, job, marriage, family, money, kids, kids to school, kids to college, kids to job, kids to marriage, etc. etc. until we die. She (Margo)’s saying that we should carpe that diem and stop living for the future and start living for the now. It’s a good point, yes, and often, I get these urges to ditch school, abandon all conventional ways of living, and run off into the forest with a stick and a rock with leaves as my garments.

...metaphorically, I mean. Not literally.



I also have this certain quote that I really liked from the book. It was something I had thought about a lot and concluded myself quite a while ago (I actually wrote a short story related to this, it was one of those story ideas that came to my head on the bus once. I was blessed to have my phone with me, so I jotted it down before it evaporated away), and I was so happy to see it written in a book (though there’s thousands of other books out there with similar quotes, many which I probably have read already):

“ ‘I always thought Lacey was so hot and so awesome and so cool, but now when it actually comes to being with her, its not the exact same. People are different when you can smell them up close, you know? […] It’s easy to like someone from a distance. But when she stopped being this amazing unattainable thing or whatever, and started being, like, just a regular girl with a weird relationship with food and frequent crankiness who’s kinda bossy—then I had to basically start liking a whole different person.’ “
--John Green, Paper Towns

I am currently editing my story which is themed around ‘beauty from a distance’ and that things are beautiful when they’re farther away, and the blemishes come to light when you’re up close. It’s one of the few story ideas that I found somewhere far from home that actually made it onto paper (or computer, rather).

So yeah.
Paper Towns was an a-okay book. A three out of five. I liked it. Eh.


Probably going to read a story or two from Mr. Edgar Allan Poe or plunge into some Sigmund Freud next—I went to the library today.
(And I got a free bookmark!! I love libraries. They give you free books AND free bookmarks. Thank you, librarians of this world. You make life more livable.)
(For that matter, I thank all humans, for having a soul and a mind and being able to use that as a vehicle to create art. All art. Writing included.)
(Let’s forget about the terrible imperfections and impurities that we have poisoned in those same souls.)



Happy reading
      (and writing)!

I finished The Book Thief yesterday, and I was hit with this wind of sadness. So I kinda found salt water on my face after finishing the book. I usually don't excrete salt water through my eyes from reading books or watching movies, but this thing practically forced them out.

The Book Thief.
By Markus Zusak.

One word to describe it: Words
One phrase to describe it: The Power of Words

During World War II, a time of difficulty, suffering, and hardships, a German girl, Liesel, lives with her foster parents in a small German town. She tries to figure out between right and wrong in the Fuhrer (Hitler), assists her family in sustaining a barely livable life, and even in the meantime, makes friends with Rudy, her soon-to-be partner in crime. As Liesel learns to read after being humiliated by her classmates, she begins to realize the power of words and the great stories they can tell. She falls in love with books and soon finds a hobby of not just reading them, but stealing them. Together, with Rudy, they steal books to apples, and scrape enough of a living to stay alive during the war. Liesel's life changes as she soon meets a man named Max Vandenberg, a Jewish friend who comes to hide in her house. Liesel and her family experience the terror of guilt and the fury of righteousness. She learns from Max the power of creating words, which in the end, saves her life.

This is a gross and very cluttered summary, but really, it's a great book that everybody should read. I tried my best not to ruin it.

Main characters:
Liesel
Max
Frau Hermann
Hans and Rosa Hubermann
Rudy

I want to write things about the ending. So if you have not read it or finished it already, DON'T.
Although the book does have this really annoying way of telling you the ending before it actually happens. The chapter starts with "blah blah this is going to happen." And then two chapters later it does, and you're totally angry that the book ruined it. But then again, it's the book that told you what would happen in that same book. You can't say anything. You couldn't have stopped it. Eh.

So.



If that wasn't a big enough warning, I don't know what is. At this point, anybody reading this should have finished the book. Because it's a pretty big blow.

What blow, you ask? Then stop reading.

...

I can't believe everybody died. I'm sure that Zusak did this to give us a tiny sliver of a feeling of what it's like to lose people in a war. But--how cruel! How sad! How... heart-prickling. Only Liesel to live? And what made me even more sad and upset was that everybody was all peacefully lying in bed, sleeping, knowing nothing, unaware, living their lives on, as the bomb quietly lifted their souls away. I don't know. The fact that they were all sleeping and peaceful as a chaotic bomb came down and tore their limbs apart was just. too. much.
(Basically emergency dial to tear ducts.)
What also tore my heart was the death of Rudy. Actually, all of the individual deaths, if you think about it, tore my heart. Rudy was because she secretly loved him (and he openly loved her, hah), and she never got to kiss him, which is funny and sad at the same time. I love how Rudy would always say, "How about a kiss, Saumensch?" I wish Rudy was a real person. He'd be an awesome friend. Liesel would be the strong willed, righteous kind. Rudy would be funny and determined. Ah... one of those reoccuring moments where I long for fictitious characters to be real humans...

Max's book, "The Word Shaker," was, to my opinion, the nub of the book. It really represented the message, I think, and it was also very cryptic. Obviously he was talking about Hitler, Liesel, and Max (even the book reveals that), and how Hitler's powerful words were handed out to the willing people, and the word shakers would climb the trees to pick the words off the trees and hand them down to the people... I guess the point is that anybody can be a word shaker. Anybody can plant a tree. But we have to stand by it, we have to stay up in that tree, or it will fall down. Stay with your words and nobody can chop them down.
Hitler's words planted hope in some and killed others. Liesel's words planted hope in some and also saved her life. Our words can do the same.

I have no idea what I just wrote.
(maybe I might, actually)

I guess anybody can interpret books differently, and it's really up to the reader, so that was my little analyzation of the book, which was put under the spoiler section for some reason. Whatever.


I want to read now.
So bye.


Happy Reading!
I'm probably going to read "Paper Towns" by John Green next. Or "American Gods".

I know; I didn't post last Saturday (or Sunday, or whatever). But I will make it up by posting twice this week. Early and late of this week.
But forgive me, I'll be quite busy on Saturday due to a piano competition. I might post on Sunday.

Today's writing will be

ohh.

I have no idea.
This is strange; I've never not had an idea in my mind before.
Ugh.

(Maybe I've forgotten yet had a faint idea, but not really blankness.)

Oh! I know. It doesn't have to be writing, right? So I'll write about the book we're reading about in school.

We are reading a book called And Then there were None by Agatha Christie. It's a mystery novel that she wrote quite a while ago, whose title was changed twice due to its politically incorrectness and offensiveness.

Okay. SPOILER ALERT.

There. That was a nice and clear admonition. Those who have not read it, you really don't want to read any farther than this, because this is a mystery novel, where 'who dies' and 'who doesn't' really matters.

Anyway, I've already read this book before, quite a while ago, actually, around fifth or sixth grade. So I knew the ending.

Well, basically, it's about a bunch of people who indirectly killed someone. They 'killed' them in such a way that evidence couldn't be brought up for or against them, and they were claimed innocent of the crime. Those people are brought to an island, each invited by a friend or an acquaintance who was temporarily out of contact with them (meaning that each person couldn't exactly talk to the person and ask them if they sent it). They get to the island, and realize that the place's atmosphere is not one that was referred to in each of their invitation. One person was invited by a friend so that they could talk about old times, one person was invited to come to be a doctor and try to help someone's health, etc. Each come for vastly different reasons, yet they get to the island (called Soldier Island) and realize that the other people on the island are people they have no relations with and have never seen or met before.

After this, they begin to realize that somehow, they are trapped and the boat (which usually come regularly every morning) stops coming. They are trapped on the island with only the ten of them. (There are ten people.)
Slowly, one by one, they each die and they realize that the "Mr. Owen" (the person who invited most of the people on the island) is responsible for all of this.

And in the end, they realize that it is one of them. Someone among those ten people is this mysterious "Mr. Owen" who kills each person following a grotesque poem titled "Ten Little Soldier Boys."

Yeah. I just pretty much wrote a summary.
And I don't know why I wrote "spoiler alert" because now that I look at it, there really aren't any major spoilers.

But anyhow, just in case. If you haven't read the book and you're still reading this post, then I'll tell you: you really haven't gotten too much of the book spoiled, so don't get too upset. All of the scary/creepy/mysterious details are in the book; it's still worth reading.

So yeah.

Bye!

by O. Henry
So today, I read “The Social Triangle” by O. Henry, a short story about, well, a social triangle. Much like a love triangle, only instead of love of others, of respect of others’ social class. It is really an interesting point of view in things, and it does get many points across. I’m not an expert at analyzing literature and finding its deepest meanings, since I’m not much experienced in the world of Classics. But in fact, I will attempt to make some analytical statements because I think it might help me improve upon my currently ground-level skill.
This story is basically about three social classes. I don’t know how to identify it, but it seems like Ikey Snigglefritz is very low class. The next up the ladder is Billy McMahan, who is a relatively high class—he’s a politician and a leader, someone much looked up to by Snigglefritz. Then, there’s the super-rich, who is Cortlandt Van Duyckink, who is a “[M]an worth eighty millions, who inherited and held a sacred seat in the exclusive inner circle of society,” (O.Henry, 22). I personally like Duyckink the most and McMahan the least. I don’t know, it just annoys me that McMahan really values meeting Duyckink to the extent that he would try to get everyone to have liquor for free just because he feels the mood. Maybe I’m being really one-sided, and his spirits were uplifted, but for some reason, at a personal scale, it bothers me a teensy bit. Also, that people would look at him much more respectedly. But it’s not like I don’t like him because of that, but more like, I don’t like how people,  normal people, everyone (even me), would do that if we were in that situation. That our attitudes change from morose to ecstatic just with the shake of a hand. Obviously, there’s a lot more meaning in that one shake, but when you look at it generally, it’s pretty interesting how effective it can be to your mood.
I also think he sort of shook Duyckink’s hand because he wanted to shake his hand, not because he wanted to donate. This I think because it says McMahan made an “[A]udacious act of his life,” which wouldn’t be called audacious if the objective was not asking to fund the help-the-poor campaign Duyckink was holding, but to merely shake Duyckink’s hand.
Obviously, there’s a lot of loopholes and craters in this supposed “analyzation” of the text, but hey, it’s kind of my first time doing this alone. (Yeah, I know. I’m old, and how can I not have done this before, I know. Just…bear with me.)
I like Duyckink because of the obvious reason—because he reached out to the poor. And also, that his heart’s set in the right place, as O. Henry says that it was his sudden urge or instinct—oh, it was an impulse. But all the same, such actions don’t stem from the brain but from the heart, and that’s what makes me solidify my opinion about Duyckink. (That he’s not a jerk.) (Not that McMahan is a jerk.) (He’s not.)
The three characters have different reasons for shaking the others’ hand. First, Snigglefritz shakes McMahan’s hand out of honor, out of pure admiration. TMO, McMahan shakes Duyckink’s hand out of want of attention and recognition (maybe a teensy bit of helping the poor). Then, Duyckink shakes Snigglefritz’s hand out of sympathy and wanting to help. These three kind of tell me that when you’re in a low position, you look up enviously a lot. When you’re high, you realize your ‘power.’ But if you’re not at the highest, the pleasure of seeing those below you look up to you, and the pleasure of just the luxury, might make you want more. When you’re at the highest, or at lest, in Duyckink’s case, you kind of see the flaws in being rich, and you stop and think about how to use it, just because you have too much of it.
Of course, these three are applying to people whose moral standards, their way of living, and their general thoughts are on the more, let’s be obnoxiously general, “good” side. Because obviously, there are plenty of rich jerks who use their money and position for more and more power, and plenty of poor jerks who just give up and don’t give a flying French fry about what they’ll do with their life.
(…yeah that just made no sense, the last two paragraphs.)

Literary Terms:
They’re not terms, by the way. I’m just using a phrase we used back in seventh grade when we did this as a class. xD So I won’t be naming too many literary terms, fyi.
What I really noticed and liked was the repetition of “He had shaken the hand of _____.”
That sentence is what ends each of the three parts of the short story. And it kind of ties it together and subtly yet quite noticeably makes the point across of the Social Triangle.

I also like the repetition of the words “impulse,” “audacious,” and “royalty” when describing the sensation of bringing yourself up to shaking the other person’s hand, and also the flushing, overwhelming feeling of the achievement as you shake their hand. It ties their emotions together while slightly distinguishing them. I didn’t notice this immediately (perhaps with audacious I did, but not with impulse and royalty), but when you think about it (at least, when I did), you remember that subtle meaning kind of left a little mark in your head and distinguishably, yet subconsciously let you know that the three are inextricably bound and related.

Work Cited
O. Henry, . 41 Stories by O. Henry. 2nd ed. New York: New American Classics, 2007. Print.

So yesterday, mi madre dice, “(My name), lee los libros, PLEASE!” And she said I had to read a classic book (she knows about this goal of mine and its apparent progress, or rather, apparent no-progress).

So now it is ‘assigned’ to me that I must read at least one page of a classic book a day.

One page? Not so bad.

 

I read some yesterday, and it was enjoyable to the aspect that I felt proud that I could understand such long, extensive, complicated texts that had such simple meanings.

For example, Dickens went for a paragraph with long sentences and hard words to just express that Oliver Twist was unable to breathe when he was first born.

My, ohmy, ohmy, ohmy.

So here I am, about to read a page of a classic book. So proud.

CHAPTER 1-

I read this yesterday. Just going to write down the hard words that I didn’t know and had to look up. (Hey, I have a small range of vocabulary for a person my age, so don’t be surprised if I don’t know a word that is academically equivalent to a word such as ‘hello’ or ‘cheese’ or ‘happy.’)

prudent (I knew what it meant, only I forgot)- careful in providing for the future.
Okay Actually I didn’t underline the words that I didn’t know, and I don’t want to re-read it and re-look it up. So too bad.

Chapter 2- Treats of Oliver Twist’s growth, education, and board.
domicile[d]- established in a home
impart- to give; to bestow
consolation- to make the person feel better by comfort and whatnot I don’t know don’t expect me to be a dictionary.
magnanimously- high-mindedly; nobly; generously
stipend- salary
consign- to entrust
parochial- relating to parishes
inadvertently- unintentionally
remonstrance- the act of protesting forcefully (to remonstrate- to protest forcefully)
impertinence- unmannerly intrusion or presumption; insolence.
diminutive- small, little, tiny
choleric- extremely irritable or easily angered; irascible
mollify- to soften in feeling or temper
stipendiary- receiving a stipend; performing services fro regular pay.
vindicate- to clear, as from an accusation, imputation, suspicion, or the like.
engender- to produce, cause, or give rise to
complacently- in a pleased manner

oakum- a loose fiber obtained by untwisting and picking apart old ropes, used for caulking the seams of ships. (Oliver had to pick these.)
sage- adj. wise, judicious, or prudent.
mortar- a mixture of lime or cement or a combination of both with sand and water, used as a bonding agent between bricks, stones, etc. In the book, Dickens’ writes:

“It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round; a brick and mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work (Dickens, 12).”

Elysium- any place or state of perfect happiness; paradise.
voracious- craving or consuming large quantities of food
        (or exceedingly eager or avid definition fits, too)
per diem- by the day; for each day

temerity- reckless boldness; rashness
pinion- to bind (a person’s arms or hands) so they cannot be used
conclave- an assembly or gathering; a meeting.
C: I know what countenance means! (:::::
allot- to divide or distribute by share or portion; distribute or parcel out; apportion

I started the book today, January 1, 2012. I finished the book today, January 1, 2012. This is how big--page-turning, and important book this is.

Important, yes.

(By the way, I started writing this post on January 1st, but I didn't finish, which is why the posting date is not the "today" of January 1, 2012, as mentioned in the beginning.)

Well, you can live through life without a book--what good is it to you, that much?
But it really makes you think. And it's from a start that you have an end, meaning at one point, beginning to read such mind-boggling books will influence you and make you read more of the-sort books, and sooner or later, you'll start understanding and seeing the world differently than one who hadn't read the book would.
And quite coincidentally, I borrowed five books from the library, and in the past three days, I've read three of those five books, and I've realized that they all have something to do with psychology. Extreme psychology, almost. Well, one book has something to do with psychology, but not as much as the other two.
To put it in the order of extremes, here they are:
House of Stairs by William Sleator
Invisible by Pete Hautman
The Kid Table by Andrea Seigel

House of Stairs is like a PG-10 book. Invisible is definitely PG-13 (13 because I read it, and I'm thirteen. xD) The Kid Table also definitely PG-13, more than Invisible.

But, quite sadly, I read Invisible and The Kid Table last year, December 30th and 31st (maybe 29th, too...? Not sure). Last year as in two, three(, four?) days ago.
So technically, the first book I've read this year is House of Stairs by William Sleator.
And because I'm lazy, I'm not going to write about Invisible and The Kid Table (probably because I'm not comfortable writing about certain topics, too...?).

I've also decided to apply school-learned topics into "real life" (although, I've never realized there was such thing as a fake life...). So I'm practicing MLA citations.
So, if you scroll to the bottom of this post, you'll see an MLA citation of House of Stairs by William Sleator. :D

After finishing this book, I summarized and told the story to my mom. The summary was not the succinct, to-the-point sort of summary, but just enough to tell her the storyline and main details to her, so that she could get an idea of the book.
And when I had finished, she told me it was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (by Roald Dahl?), in a more difficult, hard-to-understand version (heh--I'd never looked at that book/movie that way).
But I had only watched the movie.
Anyhow, she said that (she also just watched the movie, by the way) in the movie, it was like Willy Wonka was testing each of their personalities and psychological thoughts to see who "fit" for the next Willy Wonka.
Sort of similarly, House of Stairs is like that. They are, sort of "testing" the five kids to see how much the conditioning behavior would go.

When I first finished this book, my thoughts were all jumbled up and unorganized, but I still had that feeling that there was something important Sleator tried to get across to the reader in this book. Something hidden, but really important.

I still haven't figured out how to put it in words. It's something to do with jobs, and how humans react daily. And there are smaller things, too.

So, to introduce the characters to you, there is Blossom, Lola, Oliver, Peter, and Abigail. I think the characters were named wonderfully. The names just fit their personality. Although it might just be how I think because I've read through the book and learned their personality through their names and thought that's how Blossoms are like, and Lolas, and Olivers, and Peters, and Abigails. That Blossoms are people who are smart and canny, but easily betraying and always thinking of how to help themselves and not others, because I read the book, and Blossom was protrayed as such character.

And, then, comes the point when you must name the pro- and antagonist. The people who are definitely in the protagonist field are Peter and Lola. It's obvious. Like Cinderella is the protagonist in that story, so are Peter and Lola (sorry for the pathetic simile--it's the only literary reference I could come up with at the time). And the obvious antagonist? The scientist dude at the end, in the epilogue. Dr. Lawrence. Now, the not-as-obvious in-between people are Blossom, Oliver, and Abigail. They were antagonist to the protagonists, but to the definite antagonist, they are the protagonist?
So when it comes to just the five of them--Blossom, Lola, Oliver, Peter, and Abigail, it's Peter and Lola versus Blossom, Oliver, and Abigail. But when it comes to the fact that Dr. Lawrence and his crew were actually experimenting on the five of them, the protagonist group increases three digits, because now it's the five of them versus Dr. Lawrence and Co. But the main point of the story was the experiment itself, because the fact that it was an experiment and that they were being tested on was included in the epilogue, which means that Mr. Sleator did not think that last paragraph was the essential part of the story as to be put in as an additional chapter. Therefore, I will come to the conclusion that--
Wait actually, I haven't come up with a conclusion.
They are all being tested. Although Peter and Lola are strong in personality and go for what they think is right, Oliver, Blossom, and Abigail go for what they want. Although that is their ultimate(ultimate because of Abigail personality change) personality, they are still, in a way, innocent (innocent as in not guilty sort of innocent, not the naive sort), in being dragged to do such terrible things.
So although they have been cruel, the true cruelty was the Dr. Lawrence & Co., because they are the ones who (technically) forced the three of them (O, B, and A just to be lazy and abbreviate) to act so... inhumanely.

Now, if you've just read up to this point, and you haven't read the book, you should read the book and stop reading this, because then it'd just spoil the ending. Technically, it already has.
If you weren't planning to read the book anyway,  read the book anyway.
And... you're still not listening to me. But it's up to you. Spoiled ending or awesome book,  your choice. (Hint: go for the awesome book.)

Anyhow, to continue my rant.

Conditioning, at first, was an unclear subject to me, only because I am slow in understanding, and I took approximately fifteen minutes rerererererereading the page that explained conditioning. Then, I looked it up, (same link as the one before) and I found a rather... easy, more clear example of conditioning. But it takes a while to read. But actually, you can understand the subject after reading just the first part, but I chose to finish the whole page (didn't bother to read the second--I still have some form of a life, you know). Psychology is an extremely intriguing, interesting, and complex subject. I would really like to dedicate some time in the summer to read a few books related to psychology.
(That wasn't sarcasm, by the way.)
(Now you know how much of a life I have--more like, that I don't have.)
(Anyway,) Conditioning is an adjective, I guess. (It's easier when a word is defined in dictionary form). Because the article (webpage, actually) mentions "conditioning experiments". Definitely not a verb. Actually, maybe a verb. Maybe it's a noun-adjective. A noun, that means. A noun-adjective-verb.
Okay, screw the part of speech attempt.
Conditioning is a type of reaction, I guess (not good at this, please forgive me if I define it drastically differently--inform me, too), when you are accustomed to a certain result when you go about making a certain cause. For example, the book. Every time they did the weird dance thing when the light was on, food would come out. The dance was the cause, food was the result. So they were conditioned (see, this time it's a verb!) to dance every time the light was on. The light was an assigned period of time in which they could attain food. I guess this is a form of Variable Duration, although it's not that accurate. Variable Duration is that you do a certain action during a certain period of time, fully, from the beginning of that "certain period" to the end, to bring about the result you want. For example, rubbing two sticks to make a fire. You have to keep on doing that action (of rubbing the sticks) during the "certain period" (which is the time it takes to make a fire) in order to bring about the "certain result" (which is fire).
Similarly, but not so similarly, they had that assigned time, which was the time which the light was blinking and there were random whispering, to dance, which would bring about the food.

Assuming you have read through the article I have given you (technically I didn't give it to you, the Sean@betabunny.com dude who wrote the article did), I will now use terms that might usually need an explanation (I'm probably going to end up describing them anyhow).
So, obviously, the little pellets of meat are the reinforcement. Because how else could you survive in the house of stairs?
Reinforcement (here I go again) is the thing that everyone is after, the thing that will reinforce the people or subjects to do what you want them to do, which in the book, is dance. And in the circumstances of the book, food was a necessity, and so, that was the reinforement.
They became so obsessed in the fact that food was all they needed, they forgot they were just in a building with a bunch of stairs, and that there was a way out, that humans were behind this, and that people were controlling them. They just had foodfoodfood on their mind, which exposed the animal-like thoughts and instincts humans have had, and still do have. We just express them in a more, as we may call it, "civilized" way.
Oh shoot. I had something really important to say, but then I forgot.
Whatever... D:

~

Okay, so I got sidetracked this morning, and I started looking up blogger templates, then I got this whole template thing and I spent half the day editing it and doing the html coding stuff for my other blog, so I am lost. This post must be so cut up.
You probably have no idea what I mean.
Anyhow,
What am I supposed to continue?
ooooh.
Okay. So.
At the ending, it shows that all of the conditioning done to the three of them (Abigail, Oliver, and Blossom), changed them into straightforward people who were coldminded and only intent on doing what they were supposed to do. They seemed inhuman, almost, uncaring, and extremely focused and alert. They did not have open space for affection, fun, or love. Love, as in just friendliness.
They were businesslike.
Here is a quote from page 156, as Mr. Sleator writes:

"[Abigail, Oliver, and Blossom's] terse, slightly crouching posture; the way their eyes slid constantly from side to side; their quick, furtive gestures--when Abigail brushed back her hair is was not a luxuriant movement as it once had been, but quick and businesslike, as though to keep the hand poised for something more important."

It is evident that Abigail has changed.
And this is where I'll start writing about the characters.

Lola, for one. She's the tough one, the independent one, with clear leadership. But there's one downside which has brought all the hatred down on her. She expects competence. She has a short patience. She expects that everyone would think quickly, straightforward as her, and that if they don't, well, they're stupid.
Which is a bad thing, because Blossom goes forth on pinching her every inch of her mental and phsyical body using that little downside of her personality.
She does, however, have the ability to see what she had done. Many a times, she would apologize after yelling at the other four in exasperation, frustration, and impatience.
And she goes for what she thinks is right. She stands strong when others waver against her. She's brave, hard-core, and isn't easily moveable, in terms of changing her mind from what she thinks is right. We see many people like this in society today.

Blossom is the spoiled brat who has to get whatever she wants in her way. This is easily portayed, as her mental appearance matches with her physical. Fat and careless--except for food. Food is the prime. Everything for food, which is probably what brought out her inner evil-ness.
She is canny and quick in thinking out things that will get people on her side, so she can use them to go against the people she hates, and also to get the things she wants. She is very good at persuasion and talking, so she is good at lying, and all sorts of talking sort of stuff.
Ever since Blossom and Lola went out to go to the toilet, I knew Blossom would be the mean one. I knew she would do something bad that would hurt Lola.
Blossom is the quick, canny, businesslike people who manipulate people by making them on her side, and getting what she wants. We see many people like this in society today.


Abigail is what my mom says, the "most dangerous" of people. They don't have a definite thought or choice. They are easily swayed, and easily manipulated. They have half of an opinion, so that with one or two sentences, that person is convinced.
She is one who cares about what others think and not what she should do. She is the person who is afraid easily. A bystander, almost. She will probably do something bad just because she thinks others will dislike her if she does not. She does not go with the thoughts, but "with the flow (of others)." ("Go with the flow" quote does not fit in, I know... /:)

Peter is like the character that changes sides. Not as in from bad side to good or vice versa, but personality-wise. Maybe it's not even that he changes, but that the "inner him" is brought out. Who knows?
At first, Peter is this dull, slightly ignorant guy who's always daydreaming about the 'good old times' when he was with his friend Jasper, who always took care of him. He's extremely dependent and careful of things. When he is in a point of trouble, he always waits for someone to figure it out for him. He is always trying to be on the safe sides, with the least percentage of risk as possible; [Sleator, 5~6] "No, he couldn't go up them; he couldn't go down either. What if he should get dizzy again, and slip, or take the wrong step? No, it was safer to stay here, and wait."
Here is a quote that gives some proof: (This is the beginning, when he is randomly taken to the house of stairs and stuck there) "He wrapped his arms around himself and dropped his head onto his chest, closing his eyes, and tried his best not to move, or to think," (Sleator, 4).
This does not seem to prove much, but this is the reaction of when he is first there. He is not curious to see what is happening, but rather, he decides to shrink back and 'try not to think,' which is a rather idle move on his part.

He goes into a serious trance, that could smother his mind, for he goes into trances that he stays mesmerized in, for perhaps minutes after minutes after minutes, and it would take longer and longer every time to awaken out of it. And only Oliver can wake him. Which is creepy. But makes sense, because Peter is dreaming about the orphanage he was in that was nice, where Jasper was, where he was always taken care of and had no worries. And Oliver reminded him of Jasper.
He depends his mind on those trances to survive.

When he begins to change, it is frightening to him, as Mr. Sleator writes on page 104, "The responsibility was frightening, and heavy to bear, No one had ever depended on him; he had never been strong enough or good enough at anything for that. It was he who depended on others, on Oliver, on Jasper." When he decides to go against the machine with Lola, he is frightened that Lola suddenly says that he is not just a part of, but an essential part of the plan, that without him it would not work.
What really intrigues me is the way that Lola gets Peter out of the habit of trances. It would take a great deal--an extremely great deal--of logical and observational smarts to figure this out. Yet this is what happens when you are scientifically tested. You start doing and thinking things you never would do normally under normal pressure.
She started manipulating things studied by psychologists, subjects that are more complex than just straightforward rewards. It is really amazing that she could be so observant and smart to just know about Peter and his thoughts. She realized that she had to reward Peter in order to keep him out of his trances.
And soon, she found the key. She found the reason he was so determined to stay with her against the machine. "It was several things, all connected. It was the reward of winning over the machine, which he hated and feared; it was the reward of feeling strong and independent, of having his own identity, a feeling he had never known; it was the reward of caring about her, of being essential to her plan and not letting her down; it was even the reward of her caring about him," (Sleator, 126). She realized that although she had those same rewards for her, Peter was weaker, and thus the reward was stronger on him. She realized that he needed to be reminded of these rewards.
It was this that would become his intangible rewards for staying out of trances.

Not only this, but also her method of going about with keeping Peter away from his trances also interested me. She knew somehow that the reward would only work if it was given at just the right time. She would remind him how important he is, how beating the machine would be so triumphant, and how much she needs him. And she would only say this a certain time after he got out of his trance. And every time he got back into the trance, she would say it a longer time after, so that the span in between Peter coming out of his trance and Lola complimenting him widened every time. And in that in-between-time, she would do the silent treatment on him.
With this brilliant idea, Peter began to awaken more easily from his trances, and eventually wake up himself. After a while, he did not have those trances at all.
It was this, the disappearance of the trances, the overcoming of the trances, that strengthened Peter psychologically.


[Not finished yet]
But I'll just publish it. :D


Sean@betabunny.com. A Behavioral Approach to Video Game Design. Betabunny.com, N.D. Web. 2 Jan. 2012.
Sleator, William. House of Stairs. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1974. Print.

^first edition, by the way. :D

This is a very peculiar book, because it's about outside-world things like the fourth and fifth dimension. It requires a lot of thinking and time to think, so I, on one hand, have to read much slower than I usually do.
This is about a Dark Thing that is covering the Earth, which endangers those who live within it, and this Dark Thing is evil--hatred, accusations, hate, murder, treachery, betrayal, whatever that is Evil, that is bad.
The main charater, who's name is Meg, has a brother named Charles Wallace who has extreme understanding skills, and can almost read minds (I'm not sure whether it's actually directly reading the mind or just simply understanding very well), and Calvin, who is able to go into the mind and understand very well.
They must find their father, who is fighting the Dark Thing. Her father had been studying the art of Tesseration, or Tessering, or going into a Tesseract. To tesser is to go from one place to another by simply wrinkling what is in between. For example, if you take a string and hold one end with one hand and the other end with the other hand, and put an ant on one hand and make it go to the other, it would be a long distance to get to the other hand by going on the string. But if you simply wrinkled the space in between the two hands, the two start and endpoints, by puttting your hands together; folding the string, the ant will be at its destination in just one step. That is the act of tesseration, going on a tesseratct, of tessering. Now, you can do this with time and space, and Meg and Charles Wallace (siblings)'s father had done. He had landed not on Mars (which was his intended destination), but on Camazotz, a planet that had given in to the Dark Thing, and had let itself fall under the Dark Thing's rule, whom they called IT. IT had a strict pulse that if you didn't conventrate away from it, your heart would beat to that pulse, everything would beat to that pulse, and everyone would be doing the same thing in the same rhythm all similarly.It's really creepy, how it's written in the book, and right now you're probably wondering how doing the same thing can be creepy, but you have to read the book to know, just so you know. Anyhow, Charles Wallace, Meg, and Calvin tesser with the thre Ms. W's (Ms. Whatsit, Ms. Who, Ms. Which) to different worlds and finally, to Camazotz, where her father is. Chalres Wallace, in his arrogance and pride and effort to try to read the mind of a person of IT, falls into the hands of IT, and becomes like the people of Camazotz, hypnotized (in the most vaguest expression) and beating to the pulse of IT. Charles Wallace becomes not himself, but who IT orders him to be, and Meg and Calvin must try to get Charles Wallace back to himself as well as find his father.
Which they do find his father, only he doesn't understand that Charles Wallace has changed into under the force of IT, and which her father continues to treat Charles Wallace like he is Charles Wallace and not Charles Wallace Under the Order of IT.
And they actually go to IT, which is a oversized human brain that beats an irresistible beat that if you don't concentrate away from it, or relax for a moment, you go under it's beat and force. you have to not listen to it,think of other things, not give in.
That's as far as I got in the book.

L'engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time.
(forgot how to do the citation).

Why, hello, again. I have returned to my prior habits of giving a small report on books I find interesting.
Well, of course.

Anyhow, I had stumbled upon such book titled The Orange Houses written by the author Paul Griffin. Now, before you assume the book is extremely tiring and the type that would make you sort of droop your eyes without realizing it, you must listen.
It is a very, good, book. very. good. book.
I think--
Well. You'll have to read it yourself to know whether you'd like it or not, wouldn't you? I-mean, shouldn't you?

Now what I am extremely confused about is whether Mik is chubby or not. I don't want her to be chubby. I want her to be pretty (I guess she is, by the way Jae and Gale are acting... ), but then Sha calls her a fat itch.
Hmmm. whenever a word doesn't make sense and it rhymes with a term of profanity, it is then a replacement of the term of profanity it rhymes with. As so in this case, it may be applicable. coughitchcough.
Anyway.
I am also confused whether Mik is... umm... African American or not, and whether Jimmi is, because for some reason, I have that feeling at the pit of my stomach, though they never say so.
So I think she's... Caucasian, but... who knows? Those slang and stuff.
But I'm sure if Mik is Caucasian, Jimmi is, and so on. Because... I don't know.
And I think (pretty sure) that Fatima is Egyptian. Because, they said she was in Africa, and then they said they were going blah blah blah Egypt blah blah blah (I forget the whereabouts of such mentioning).

I am not sure, so I strongly suggest that you read the book that Mr. Paul Griffin read.
I honestly think authors should have a title. Mr., Mrs., Wr., or maybe Aut., No. Au. No.
I think Wr. is best.
So I shall start the revolution.
Wr. Paul Griffin wrote the book The Orange Houses, and I strongly suggest such reading of such sort of literature. As it does have some interesting poems, and it is fairly hard to decipher. I think I shall take a second round of reading it, whence my confusion has caused me so.
(Hey, I like talking like this.)

And I very much took a liking of Jimmi's poems, as though the grammar may not be in much agreement with a Literacy instructor, it has a good rhythm, almost. It's a catchy type.
And catchy means that I want to write like that sort of poems.

Already made some.
They're on my other blog, www.therecipetolife.blogspot.com.
Thanks, and have a nice day. (c)AJ2010