Book 7 Part 1: Hobbits and Sickness.

It’s not that I didn’t want to write a new post, it’s more along the line of “life took over” for a bit. Coupled with a busy few days and what I am terming, “the death cold” I am finally writing an entry that should have been written a few days ago!

Truth be told, you didn’t miss much. Since I am sick (with the worst cold ever—perhaps I am exaggerating), I haven’t been reading much. I have had a headache that simply won’t go away and my eyes can’t seem to focus on the pages in front of me.

That being said, I am reading something. I’m in the middle of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first in The Lord of the Rings (On my list, the LOTR is listed as one book, so I am actually going to read all three volumes back to back, even though it only counts as one off my master list). I have read LOTR many times before and I know the movies almost by heart, so it’s really like visiting an old friend. I am especially enjoying all the hobbits and the scenes that take place in the Shire before Frodo and boys leave for Rivendell. In the film version, the action really gets moving so you don’t get to spend as much time learning about the hobbits and their quirks.

You also miss out on the amazing character in Tom Bombadil in the movies. Peter Jackson simply couldn’t put in more film when the movies were already 4 hours and up. However, Tom Bombadil is the one thing sorely lacking in the film. He’s hilarious and well-written.

For example, here is a snippet of the song he sings:

“Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow,
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master:
His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster,” (180).

I just like picturing a big old man with huge yellow boots bounding over the hills. It makes me chuckle.

It is also interesting to see how the characters are described in the book as to how they are interpreted in the film version. For instance, Frodo is over 50 when he leaves the Shire with the Ring, whereas in the film little Elijah Wood plays him and he appears much more youthful.

I happen to be right at the part where the four hobbits and Strider (later called Aragorn) reach Rivendell after being pursued by the Black Riders. Its one of my favorite scenes and I can’t wait to curl up with it and get to Moria with the Fellowship.

And if that didn’t make sense to you it means you haven’t read the books or seen the movies. Which you need to do. Now.

I have a lot more to say about the hobbits and these books in general, but I don’t think little sick me should push it. Until tomorrow…happy reading.

Book 6: Finished.

Apparently I am a bad blogger. See, I thought I had this post already written and up, but when I actually went and looked, lo and behold I was mistaken.

I finished Frankenstein on Wednesday and I never wrote about it! Bad, bad Allie.

So, here I am, writing the post I thought I had already written.

I just wanted it in words officially: I loved Frankenstein. No, amend that: I LOVED FRANKENSTEIN. I honestly don’t know why I never gave it a chance earlier. I think I had some preconceived notion that it was a horrid scary kind of book when in fact, it is quite wonderful.

First, you have the invention of the storyline itself. A “crazy” scientist creates a new being, then deserts it after finally realizing “hey, maybe I shouldn’t be playing God.”

Second, the writing is amazing. The story is continually moving forward and each word and each sentence is so beautifully constructed. There were many times when I simply had to stop and say “wow.”

Third and finally, it was just simply more than I originally thought. I think it often gets the rap of being something completely different. Yes, there is a monster and he does do some monstrous things, but the real monster is the man. This isn’t a story about the monster. It is about the man who pushes science too far and regrets that decision. Really, I can’t rave enough.

So yes, I finished Frankenstein and loved every word of it. I think I might even go as far as adding it to my list of all-time favorites (which is around 30 or so books).

I will leave you with a few quotes.

This first is actually one from Shelley’s introduction. I have to give credit to Kyla for pointing it out to me:

“It is not singular that as the daughter of two persons of distinguished literary celebrity, that I should very early in life have thought of writing. As a child I scribbled; and my favorite pastime during the hours given me for recreation was to ‘write stories.’ Still, I had a dearer pleasure than this, which was the formation of castles in the air—the indulging in waking dreams—the following up trains of thought, which had for their subject the formation of a succession of imaginary incidents,” (5).

Just for the beauty of the language:

“O! what a miserable night I passed! The cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees waved their branches above me: now and then the sweet voice of a bird burst forth amidst the universal stillness. All, save I, were at rest or enjoyment: I, like the archfiend, bore a hell within me, and finding myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin,” (132).

I love Victor’s musings on life and death:

“Soon, oh! Very soon, will death extinguish these throbbings, and relieve me from the mighty weight of anguish that bears me to the dust; and, in executing the award of justice, I shall also sink to rest. Then the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was ever present to my thoughts; and I often sat for hours motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in ruins,” (175).

Also beautiful:

“A fiend had snatched from me every hope of future happiness: no creature had ever been so miserable as I was; so frightful an event is single in the history of man,” (191).

And lastly:

“No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone,” (213).

Penguin Classics Contest.

In my internet wanderings I discovered a contest going on through Penguin books. They recently released a list of their "Top Ten Essential Penguin Classics." It is a pretty good list and I am glad to see that The Odyssey is up there on their list.

I really like Penguin editions and I find them well done, so I was excited to see that they are hosting a contest.

If you win, you get a Penguin tote bag, complete with ten copies of their ten essential classics.

Of course I entered, but I wanted to pass along the contest information to you.

Just follow the link and good luck!

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/features/tenessentialclassics/

On Banned and Challenged Books.

Even though I had a post-it note on my calendar for the last three weeks reminding me what last week was, I completely forgot to write about. Last week was Banned Books Week hosted by the ALA (American Library Association) which an annual event to call attention to the list of books that have been banned and/or challenged in the past, as well as reminding us all of first amendment rights.

Even though the national events took place last week, I still think this is an important topic to discuss. I don’t believe in censoring art and literature is art. I also think that those people who are attempting to ban or censor books haven’t considered everything that is important about that piece.

Let’s talk about one book in particular: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. This novel is contested constantly and usually for one main reason. True, the novel contains a lot of offensive language—particularly the “n word.” Now, why I can see why this book in particular is offensive, it is incredibly reflective of the time period in which it was written. To ban it is to simply pretend that one specific time period in U.S. history just didn’t happen.

For the people who challenge books for this kind of “questionable” content, I have to wonder about a few things. First, are they taking into account the kind of lessons you can teach about these pieces? For Huckleberry Finn in particular, I would love to teach my own children about the past where words like that were acceptable and common and how we have changed.

Secondly, are they challenging the books without reading them? I know this to be the case. We had an incident at one of the schools I taught at where a parent “heard from their child” about the content of the book and challenged it. Without reading it. How is that teaching your child responsibility?

Thirdly, by challenging a book you might be succeeding in preventing many others from reading it. Instead, take an active role in what your child is reading by knowing what they are reading. If you personally have an issue with something, then explain why to your child.

As I continue reading through my own list of books, I have to keep in the back of my mind that many of things I am reading were once considered quite scandalous, but as time as passed on, they have lost that shock value. Just as I am sure that many of the current books being challenged (Harry Potter anyone?) will also fade in offensiveness as time goes on.

For your own personal pleasure I am leaving with a few links. One links to a list of classics that have been challenged sometime in their existence. I am also linking to the ALA’s site on banned books so you can learn for yourself. I encourage everyone to read a “banned book” and see for yourself whether it is right to censor such art.

Banned Classics:
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedclassics/index.cfm

ALA Website on Banned Books:
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/index.cfm

Book 6: The Man and the Monster.

I am sure somewhere in my school career I was supposed to read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. And I am about 100% positive that rather than reading about the monster I decided to go to sparknotes.com and just read the summary. In fact, I know that I didn’t read it in one of my college classes because I fell behind and luckily for me, it was one of those classes where you could choose your essays on the test and I simply picked the ones not about Frankenstein.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what I had against Frankenstein. Perhaps I thought the book had to do a lot with the monster and would leave me trembling in my bed at night. This explanation makes sense seeing as after I saw the movie Signs I slept with a glass of water by my bed for over two weeks to splash on the aliens. And that I almost cried in I am Legend and the new King Kong. Matt laughed at me both times while also cringing as he tried to dig my nails out of his arms.

I am hoping by this point that you understand one thing: I am a huge chicken when it comes to anything remotely scary. My junior year of high school I scheduled a counseling appointment to talk about colleges on the day I knew we would be watching Poltergeist in class because I was afraid I would start crying. So yes, I am a chicken and perhaps that is where my fear of reading Frankenstein stems from.

The truth is, the book is not really about the scary monster who is trying to eat people and do other monsterish type things (or at least I am not to the bonecrushing, screaming, murderous part just yet, if there even is one). Instead, it seems to be more about Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the creature and a man who is just as much a monster as his monster.

Victor creates his creature out of deep loneliness and a desire to show off his skill and intelligence. Throughout the long process of creation, he never once thinks of the destruction and havoc of what he is doing, or what others will think of his experiment. Instead, he is selfish and only cares about his work, which is proven when his family writes to him saying they have not heard from him for some time.

It’s not until the creature actually opens its eye and looks at him that Victor realizes the implications of what he has done. He has purposely created something stronger and taller than man that can walk and eventually talk. It is a creature created of sewn together body parts and Victor’s own designs. The creature is not human and never can be, but is a result of a human’s desire to create something larger than himself.

Early on in the novel when Victor first goes to college to study, he says this,

“In other studies you go as far as other have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder,” (49).

That may very well be true, but should the boundaries be pushed to the limit as Victor has done? If his eventual dismissal of the creature is any response, than the answer to that question is a resounding “no.”

So yes, Victor pushes the limits of science and what has been done before, then simply dismisses the creature and runs away (and hides like a little girl, distraught at what he has done). Who is really the monster? The creature who did not ask to be born (made) and who is defenseless in a world where his creator has abandoned him? Or the man who pushed science so far he took creation into his own hands and mind and created a being and then left it to its own when the sight of it disgusted him?

I am sure I am not the first person to read Frankenstein and make the connection that when you talk of the monster, you are not talking about the creature, but of Victor Frankenstein himself. And that the title, Frankenstein, does not allude to the creature, but to the man.

It makes all those Hollywood movies seem silly, with the monster shuffling along with outstretched arms moaning and attacking innocent villagers. The villagers should be rallying behind the monster and going after Victor with their pitchforks and torches.

Now, I could be saying this all prematurely, as I haven’t finished the book (but I am close to). The creature could decide to go all Hollywood on me and eat some people or terrorize some virgin maidens, but I still feel the real monster is Victor. Without him and his desire for greatness, there would be no monster wrecking chaos on the poor humans.

I feel a great deal of sympathy towards the creature, for being unable to control its lot in life and the reactions of people to its ugly exterior. I feel the same way towards many other lost things in this world, abandoned by people who are selfish and seeking greatness—the people they stepped on along the way.

I am hoping for a happy, Disney-like ending for the creature, even though I know he won’t get one. A girl can dream, right?

Now off to finish…