the lover's dictionary. david levithan. (259)

i read the lover's dictionary back in 2012, but i never blogged about it.  i meant to play catch up and wanted to post for all those books i had read, but it never happened.  i absolutely loved the lover's dictionary.  after seeing it on strand books' instagram for valentine's day, i decided to reread it for valentine's day.

the lover's dictionary was exactly that a dictionary, each definition shared an incident or a character trait of the protangonist and his partner.  i say partner, because the sex of the partner is never disclosed.  the first time i read it, i had assumed the partner was a woman, however, after reading levithan's work, it could be a man.  i tried to look for an indication of the gender, but other than a mention of a need to buy shoes, everything was gender neutral.  (it is also sexist to think that only women splurge on shoes, see: sneakerheads.)  back to the definitions, they are very clever and there is wonderful wordplay which makes this book even more delightful.

through the definitions, a love story is revealed, the definitions past back and forth through time revealing how love was found, betrayed and in the end, lost.  the definitions about falling in love and realizing one is in love, bring joy.  the ones about fights and losing are sad yet beautiful.  the epiphanies brought on by heartache were my favorite parts, but i am a big fan of sad love songs so this makes sense.

there were a handful of definitions that stopped me and caused me to reflect on my life and love and isn't that the markings of a great book?  i really need to buy a copy for my personal library.  i will keep it next to an actual dictionary.

but here are some of my favorite definitions:

I, n.

Me without anyone else.

only, adj.

That's the dilemma, isn't it?  When you're single, there's the sadness and joy of only me.  And when you're paired, there's the sadness of joy of only you.

punctuate, v.

Cue the imaginary interviewer:

Q: So when all is said and done, what you learned here?

A:  The key to a successful relationship isn't just in the words, it's in the choice of punctuation.  When you're in love with someone, a well-placed questions mark can be the difference between bliss and disaster, and a deeply respected period or a cleverly inserted ellipsis can prevent all kind of exclamations.

oh and i have to add, the definition for meander made me smile.  it discussed how to kill a mockingbird had no follow-up so was essentially a literary one-hit wonder, but that will be changing soon!

lovely right?  oh and i have to add this book is even better because i learned on amazon that valentine's day played a role in the start of this book!

   

the giving tree. shel silverstein.

as i mentioned in my previous blog from today, brother bear has started a summer reading program.  the first book on his read list was "the giving tree" by shel silverstein.  

i love love love love love love "the giving tree".  it is my favorite book of all time.  ok, so it might be tied with "where the wild things are" but i do get more emotional when i read "the giving tree". it makes me cry every time i read it. it's a wonderful story of the greatest love of all (even greater than whitney's).  the tree gives all she has to the boy simply because she loves him.  i also admired the trees innovative thinking because she might not have what the boy needs but finds a way to help him.

"the giving tree" is beautiful metaphor for parental love.  the tree loves the boy and helps him through all stages of his life.   furthermore, the tree expects nothing in return for her help.  due to this, one may think the boy is selfish but he is a child and as children, we are so focused on our own needs that we tend to neglect our parents and may not always express gratitude.  however, this lack does not mean a lack of love.  we just we get caught up in our lives but will always love our parents in return just like the boy returned to the tree.

this interpretation of "the giving tree" is why i get emotional because it reminds me of my grandma.  grandma bea is my giving tree.  her love is selfless and all she wants is for her kids and grandchildren to be happy.  she may not always have the means to aid her family but she will make do with what she has and provide what she can.  and in the end, regardless just knowing that she loves you is enough to get you through your low points in life.  my grandma has given me so much, just like the tree does for the boy  that i will never be able to repay her but i know she knows how much i love her and that is payment enough.  also as selfish as it may sound, i know the happiness of her kids and grandkids is enough payment for her as well.  and that is why she is so amazing.

the catcher in the rye. j. d. salinger.

i first heard of "the catcher in the rye" in the 1997 film "conspiracy theory" starring julia roberts and mel gibson.  in the film, gibson's character shared a conspiracy theory about how assassins are obsessed with the novel.  also gibson's character had an odd impulse to buy "the catcher in the rye" and looked for it in every bookstore he walked by.  i will admit that due to the film, every time i was in a bookstore, i would wander over to the s section to look for "catcher" (i was an odd kid).  but thanks to the film, i read it and fell in love with "the catcher in the rye" and it became one of my favorite books. on my first read, my favorite part was how holden kept on asking where the ducks went in the winter.  i though it was such a quirky thing to ask and couldn't believe no one had an answer for him.  i will also admit that i missed the whole him writing his story from a mental institution thing.

i read "catcher", my junior year on my own and then mr. brice (one of my favorite teachers) assigned it my senior year.  in fact, the copy i reread (for this blog) was from my senior year, though not mine, i somehow ended up with stephen warren's book:

 

i remember we had an assignment in which we had to draw what was in holden's mind.  i drew the ducks at the lagoon, allie's baseball mitt, his red hunting hat (which i drew more of like a three musketeers hat but with less brim because of all the talk of it's peak, i now know what a hunting hat looks like thanks to google), a checker board with all the kings in the back row and a carousel.  what is interesting, the images i drew were still my favorite parts during the reread, especially allie's mitt covered in poetry.  i was relieved that these images stood out to me because i was worried i would not enjoy "catcher", as an  adult.

since i am going to new york this weekend, i decided to reread "catcher" because the protagonist in "truth in advertising" retraced holden's footsteps when he first moved to new york. i want to do the same but decided i should save it for a trip in the winter, it wouldn't be the same to have the ducks there.  also it is on flavorpill's 30 before 30 and figured i should give it another read before i am old.  i was worried about reading it again but as you have seen with other classics, i discovered that i should have read them when i was younger to get their full effect.  i was scared i would be annoyed by holden and all of his talk about phonies but in fact i loved him just the same.  i still

think it is better to meet holden when you are in high school but i had a better understanding of him when i met him again as an adult.

as a teen, his perspectives on life and society left an impression on me, even though i was the anti-holden.  i was a well-adjusted kid, got good grades, involved in a bunch of extra-curricular activities, stayed out of trouble and didn't hate the world or anything.  but i was at the age where i was starting to question authority, not my parents but school administration and church regulations.  i was starting to see that adults didn't have all the answers or necessarily did what was right and so holden's talk of phonies and all of the contradictions within society was eye opening. he demonstrated not to take the world at face value and you should question society.

i am not saying that holden didn't have issues.  he definitely did but he was also misunderstood, i realized that when i caught myself judging him.  it was when he discussed how he hates people with cheap luggage.  at first, i thought he was being pretentious but after he shared the story of his roommate with cheap luggage that tried to pass off holden's luggage as his own, his hatred made sense.  he didn't hate cheap luggage it was a metaphor for his hatred of how expensive things make others feel inferior.  i thought it was nice how he tried to hide his luggage to make his roommate feel comfortable.  holden was actually full of good intentions, just like this.  he was caring which is why he wanted to be a catcher in the rye; to save and protect others. deep down inside, holden had a heart of gold, he just had issues because of his brother allie's death.  

on this reread, i realized for the first time how much allie's death affected holden.  i knew he had a difficult time with allie's death, the breaking widows and even missing the funeral due to being in the hospital.  i thought holden's issues were due to him feeling like an outcast from society but his alienation was the result of his brother's death.  as a teen, death is an abstract concept, those that die around us are usually older and so it makes sense, there is no need to question the universe for its actions. however it is not the same when it's with someone young.  i only had older relatives die when i was young, so i never made the connection as to how a sibling's death at a young age can affect someone.  but now i can imagine how it must have been for holden.  no wondered he hated the world, he was dealt a bad hand. it also explained why holden was so hung up on saying good-bye.  his searching for a sense of farewell during his final days at pencey seemed odd but was understandable in this context.  it also explained why he wanted to make sure to tell phoebe bye instead of just leaving as he did with everyone else.  (and luckily he did because he then got the help that he needed.)

the loss of allie left a void in holden's life which he could not fill with actual friends (with the exception of jane).  i think a lot of people who read "catcher" get caught up on the fact the hired a prostitute or was constantly calling up people to go out drinking.  but it wasn't because he was a sex fiend or an alcoholic but simply he was lonely.  he sadly did not have anyone in his life except his sister.  it made me sad how desperately he tried to make friends at bars, i was genuinely embarrassed for him every time he tried to buy someone a drink.  though i will admit that if i was carl luce, i would have left him too, he was so annoying with his sex talk. but i forgave him in the book because i saw how goddamn lonely he was.

random sidenote:  but i thought it was admirable how holden respected that no meant no even though he talked about sex a lot.

as i said before i am not denying that holden needed to be psychoanalyzed. his talk of killing or injuring people was very disturbing.  another thing i better understood on the reread was his moment of what would appear to be schizophrenia.  living in la, i encountered a lot of homeless schizophrenics talking to themselves, this was not the case in delano.  due to this, as a teen, i didn't think much of holden talking to allie as he walked around but now i get how crazy he must have looked.  i had always thought it as sweet, keeping allie's memory alive but the talking to him was a huge indication of holden's need for help.  also he was a pathological liar too.  though i do forgive him for lying to that one's kid's mother on the train cos no one wants to hear how their kid is actually an asshole.

but i am glad he did get help because holden is one of my favorite characters. i want to be hopeful about his future.  i really do think holden and i would have been good friends.  there were so many random things he said that i totally got.  

like when he talks about good books:

what really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him

io on the phone whenever you felt like it.

i wish some of my favorite authors were my friends.  i also agreed with him that "a farewell to arms" is horrible, i have no idea why people like it when hemingway has written better. also loved how he quoted "old sport" from "gatsby".

i also love his quote "i'm illiterate but i read a lot."

though morbid, i do agree with his "who wants flowers when your dead? nobody!" i don't want flowers right now alive.  

there are a handful of other gems he shares but this blog is already long so i won't continue.

as i mentioned before i read this as part of flavorpill's 30 before 30, i also said that i thought it was best to read in high school but a reread in your late twenties is good, especially during your "return of saturn" or if you having a quarter life crisis.  if you know me, you know i love birthdays but i also have peter pan syndrome.  but i am dreading turning 30 tomorrow, like sylvia plath-ing it sounds like a good alternative to getting old.  and oddly enough this book was the perfect read for me on the eve of my birthday because like me, holden is scared of growing up.

holden and i both share a love of natural history museums.  my favorite part of the museums are the dioramas, i love seeing the taxidermy animals in their habitats.  there is something magical about the darkness of the hall and the bright lights and scenes in the dioramas.  however, as i read holden's description of the natural history museum, i saw why holden and i both love natural history museums.  it is because time is on pause  in natural history museums . holden discussed how he loved how phoebe can experience the museum just as he did because it stays the same.  i never thought of it that way but this makes sense.  if i could pause life like a diorama, i would, there are so many times in life where i am just so content that i wish it could last forever. also life is preserved in natural history museums and i am very nostalgic, my past is filled with so many great memories, that i often revisit it via pictures. it's the same for holden, his past has his brother alive so he would want it that way as well.  

another way we are similar is our attempts to avoid growing up. i never took notice of it on my previous reads but if i was sally hayes, i would jump at the opportunity to runway to vermont or massachusetts.  choose a simple life instead of one complicated with education, class, wealth and social norms. but alas just like holden, i have to grow up and become a mature (read: married and with kids) person.  its odd because i thought i learned this in high school when i had my whole life ahead of me but i guess i needed to read it again.

books i read in 2012.

sadly i did not reach my goal of reading 100 books in 2012. i was on track in june but the second half of the year just didn't happen. any hoot, as of right now i have read 77 books this year. i am currently reading junot diaz's latest book so it might be 78, if i finished by midnight. but technically it should be like 87 books considering how long tolstoy's novels are!

here is what i learned from this year of reading:

-i was born in the wrong era. i should have been an ex-pat in paris with the lost generation (yes this is also the plot for woody allen's "midnight in paris").

-if you aren't reading a work in its original language, research about the translation! and most of the big publishers often use outdated translation. (ie the barnes and noble classics, the prices for the classics are good but you are kinda of getting what you paid for.)

-ray bradbury is a poet and not a sci-fi writer and his books are filled with great gems about life.

-don't forget children's classics. when i read "the borrower" i listed out all the childern's books rebecca makkai alluded to in the novel, so i could read them now. i am disappointed i didn't read them but i'm getting caught up. and i have to add, i should have read "the hobbit" when i was younger. why did i wait so long?

-reading the books that were assigned in high school would have my helped SAT verbal. because those vocab words everyone thinks that no one ever uses, are actually being used.

-ereaders are overhyped. i won one this year and sadly have only read 2 books on it. i need a physical book, my eyes scan too quickly on a screen. oddly enough i buy ebooks just in case the future world is more reliant on ereaders.

-i have a book addiction. i love roaming $1 bookstores and goodwills for books and can not resist a bargain. seriously the amount of books i have purchased this year is prolly equivalent to how many i have read, luckily for me they were only a dollar! lol

books of 2012
1. "dream school" blake nelson
2. "the sun also rises" ernest hemingway
3. "for whom the bell toll" ernest hemingway*
4. "save me the waltz" zelda fitzgerald
5. "tender is the night" f. scott fitzgerald*
6. "the beautiful and the damned" f. scott fitzgerald
7. "the family fang" kevin wilson*
8. "a farewell to arms" ernest hemingway
9. "the old man and the sea" ernest
hemingway
10. "three lives" gertrude stein
11. "the autobiography of alice b. toklas" gertrude stein
12. "ten thousand saints" eleanor henderson
13. "the borrower" rebecca makkai*
14. "the search for delicious" natalie babbitt*
15. "friends like us" lauren fox
16. "the day of the locust" nathanael west
17. "miss lonelyhearts" nathanael west
18. "madame bovary" gustave flaubert
19. "bossypants" tina fey
20. "james and the giant peach" rolad dahl
21. "love with tear us apart" sarah rainone
22. "guns, germs, and steel" jared diamond*
23. "the bfg" rolad dahl
24. "is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns)" mindy kaling*
25. "the lover's dictionary" david levithan*
26. "tuck everlasting" natalie babbitt
27. "leaving the atocha station" ben lerner
28. "to kill a mockingbird" harper lee**
29. "the fault in our stars" john green*
30. "everything is illuminated" jonathan safran foer**
31. "dash & lily's book of dares" rachel cohn & david levithan
32. "charlotte's web" e.b. white
33. "steve jobs" walter isaacson
34. "an object of beauty" steve martin
35. "stuart little" e.b. white
36. "from the mixed-up files of mrs. basil e. frankweiler" e.l. konigsburg
37. "franny and zooey" j.d. salinger
38. "we the animals" justin torres*
39. "extremely loud & incredibly close" jonathan safran foer
40. "paul's boutique" dan leroy (331/3 series)
41. "defiance" nechama tec
42. "eeeee eee eeee" tao lin
43. "no one belongs here more than you" miranda july*
44. "wonder" r.j. palacio
45. "raise high the roof beams, carpenters and seymour-an introduction" j.d. salinger
46. "fahrenheit 451" ray bradbury
47. "dandelion wine" ray bradbury*
48. "richard yates" tao lin
49. "pride and prejudice" jane austen
50. "pride and prejudice and zombies" jane austen and seth grahame-smith
51. "lord of the flies" william golding
52. "romeo and juliet" william shakespeare
53. "their eyes were watching god" zora neale hurston
54. "the martian chronicles" ray bradbury
55. "the emperor's children" claire messud
56. "you don't love me yet" jonathan lethem
57. "howl and other poems" allen ginsberg
58. "anna karenina" leo tolstoy
59. "most talkative: stories from the front lines" andy cohen
60. "to the lighthouse" virginia woolf
61. "the magicians" lev grossman
62. "eat pray love" elizabeth gilbert
63. "paris, i love you but you're bringing me down" rosecrans baldwin
64. "nw" zadie smith
65. "mr. penumbra's 24 hour bookstore" robin sloan*
66. "the witches" roald dahl
67. "something wicked this way come" ray bradbury
68. "the house on mango street" sandra cisneros**
69. "caramelo" sandra cisneros
70. "you lost me there" rosecrans baldwin
71. "have you seen marie?" sandra cisneros
72. "war and peace" leo tolstoy
73. "the secret book of frida kahlo" f.h. haghenbeck
74. "two from galilee" marjorie holmes
75. "the perks of being a wallflower" stephen chbosky**
76. "a christmas carol" by charles dickens
77. "the hobbit" j. r r tolkien*

*my favorites this year
**my favorite re-reads/i will love forever

friends please comment any books you suggest i should read in 2013 or your favorite books of 2012!

the perks of being a wallflower. stephen chobsky. (81)

"the perks of being a wallflower" has been on my to reread list ever since i saw the movie. i have been hunting for my copy from high school (well not too seriously, i think it's in storage) so that i could read it for nostalgic reasons. however, i recommended allison (one of my adventure day kids, i take a couple of kids from the dance studio to the library on tuesdays) check it out. and since she is in a middle of a book, i borrowed it so i could reread it. right now i am in the middle of "les miserables" but took a break to read this. it took me 6 hours to read.

like i gushed in the blog post about the movie, i absolutely love love love love love this book. for proof check out that post.

even though i read it a handful of times in high school, i forgot a lot of things. i forgot about charlie's friend michael's suicide, sam's molestation as a child, his sister's pregnancy, and charlie and sam's talk on her last night. furthermore, i realized that the movie really did do the book justice. paul rudd made an excellent bill, i seriously have a huge book crush on bill. i also plan on reading the books and watching the movies bill gave charlie.* (maybe i should look for a nice high school english teacher to date?) i have to add that my rereading was greatly askew by the movie because i saw all the characters as their actor counterparts. sadly i can not remember how i imagined them before. however, all of the actors did fit, so it was fine. overall, i realized that i may have been a little harsh on the movie version, it was not as horrible or disappointing as i said. it was true to the essence of the book. however, i have to reiterate my disappointment in the christmas poem not being recited in the film.

my rereading not only made me realize how harsh i was on the film but also why i didn't love it like i loved the book. the reason being that as a reader you really get to know charlie, as a viewer your relationship is superficial. charlie is a great character and the best way to get to know him is through his letters. the ramblings in his letters paint a better picture of who charlie is versus the tales of his high school years. yes the stories were great but the true beauty is his musing and thoughts on life.

here are some examples:

his thoughts on old photos and how people happier people look in them:

"i just hope i remember to tell my kids TJs they are as happy as i look my old photographs. and i hope that they believe me."

when he discovered his grandfather once beat his mom when she was a child and received bad grades:

"i don't know if that's good or bad. i don't know if it's better to have your kids be happy and not go to college. i don't know if it's better to be close with your daughter or make sure that has a better life than you do."

on mixed tapes:

"i has an amazing feeling when i finally held the tape in my hand. i just thought to myself that in the palm of my hand, there was this one tape that had all these memories and feelings and great joy and sadness. right in the palm of my hand. and i thought about how many people loved those songs. and how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. and how many odious enjoyed good times with those songs. and how much songs really mean. i junk it would be great to have written one of these songs. i bet if i wrote one of them, i would be very proud. i hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. i hope that they feel it's enough. i really do because they've made me happy. and i'm
only one person."

i just realized that i will end up quoting the whole book so will stop. but the point is that what makes charlie so great is his selflessness, his ability to think beyond himself. i try sometimes to think about the lives of strangers, wondering what they have experienced and when i do, it humanizes them and then it easier to understand and then eventually love thy neighbor. charlie was just as described, a wallflower and an observer but what made him different was his empathy. as i read about charlie, i thought of another boy who felt too much, douglas from "dandelion wine". i didn't discuss it in that blog but at the end of "dandelion wine" douglas became ill because he takes on the suffering and feelings of others. it's kinda jesus-y but not in a cheesy way. but both saw the world in a ego-less way which resulted in novels with great life lessons.

the ramblings of charlie get one thinking about their life and that is what make this book so great. charlie's inner thoughts were lost in the movie. it's probably because these thoughts would have been too random in the movie but make sense in the book. like when charlie's mother told his brother to watch his language in front of charlie. his brother used the words "faggot" and "high" and charlie realized that he is the only one in the car that has a gay friend or has done drugs. he also realized that maybe everyone is in family has been high and they just don't say anything. and he's so right. i bet a lot of people who know have toked up but we just don't realize it. its random thoughts like this that make you love charlie.

as i was reading, i wondered what it was that made the younger me fall in love with this book. i know for one it was the music. i actually made a mixed cd version of the tape charlie gave patrick as his secret santa gift (i listened to it as i wrote this blog). and to this day i am hopeful that a boy will gift me a copy of the beatles' "something" because it reminds him of me. i also love the idea that certain moments soundtracked with the right song can makenone feel infinite.

so quick digression. in the movie, the infinte song was "heroes" by bowie. but in the book it's simply a song about a boy. i thought maybe pearl jam's "jeremy" but that song came out in '92 and that moment took place in '91. i tried googling songs about a boy in 91 and no luck. even looked through list of top songs of 91 and found nothing. curious about others theories on what song it is. though i did discover that the love song they heard while searching for music that had the word "baby" had to be amy grant's "baby, baby" that came out in 91.

the poem that charlie gave patrick for christmas had a profound effect on the high school verison of me. i thought it was really deep. i had the same reaction as the rest of the group at the christmas party. i was in awe of it. now as an adult, the poem is sad but less profound, i guess the difference is that i have lost my naiveté about the world. when i read it as a teen, i was starting to question my world as i knew it. i was realizing that not everything is black and white and that though i may have strong morals, it doesn't mean the world does. i always mentioned my religious upbringing but i remember the priest part because i was starting to realize maybe religion wasn't capital t-truth. and that maybe things done in the name of god where not always the right thing. the ending of the poem never seemed a solution to any problems i had as a teen, it wasn't profound because i had thoughts of sucide. though it did make me sad for kids that did. i lived in a bubble, i never suffered any kind of abuse, and lead a straight-edge life. so did not connect with the story because it was a shared experience.

reading the perks was a voyeuristic experience for me. i never did drugs or had sex in high school, i was such a good mormon. so "the perks" was how my high school years could have been if i released my inner party-er at a teen. i would have done everything except the lsd. and no coincidence that one of the first things i did in college was attend a midnight "rocky horror" showing. i loved reading about their performances. (i always say myself playing columbia versus dammit janet. i would get down in those tap shoes!). so maybe i was charliesque in that sense, i didn't "participate" in that crazy lifestyle but enjoyed reading about it.

"the perks of being a wallflower" will always be one of my favorite books. these characters have always felt like my friends and even as i grow older, i won't lose my connection. they are like high school friends, you may outgrow each other but you will always be friends because of the experiences you had together.

last random note: the lowercase-ness of the title is why i stopped using capital letters.

*charlie's reading and watching list:
to kill a mockingbird
this side of paradise
peter pan
the great gatsby
a separate piece
catcher in the rye
walden
on the road
naked lunch
the stranger
halmet
the fountainhead

the graduate
harold and maude
my life as a dog
dead poets' society
the unbelievable truth

dandelion wine. ray bradbury. (52)

believe it or not, my source for the latest news on celebrity death is twitter. it's almost like a game, who can tweet that someone has died first but it also resourceful because i end up being one of the first to know. when ray bradbury passed away, i found out on twitter. i also noticed that majority of the tweets included some type reference to dandelion wine. i racked my brain, did guy montag drink this? but i found my answer when i checked out his books at the library. "dandelion wine" is one of his works.

before i go on, i have to gush. i love love love love love this book. if you haven't read it, please pick up a copy. i have no idea why "dandelion wine" isn't forced upon high schoolers instead of "fahrenheit 451". "dandelion wine" has so many great life lessons. and due to these lessons, it is on my list of 30 to read before you are 30.

to be honest i didn't expect to love this book . i think of bradbury as a sci-fi writer so i wasn't too sure what this novel would be about. would everyone turn out to be aliens? but i was wrong and silly because it turned out to be a whimsical and wonderful story of a boy, douglas, and his adventures one summer in the small town of green town, illinois.

i hate to be judge-y but i always assume that sci-fi novels will be a little dorky and dry. but bradbury is not a sci-fi writer but a poet as i discovered in the foreword to "the martian chronicles". and it's especially true for "dandelion wine" which was based on bradbury's childhood but also makes any reader nostalgic for their own childhood.

there was so much beauty in this book. it is filled with valuable lessons on life, death, growing old, growing up, and of course, how to be happy. there are also many memorable characters, one of my favorites was the time machine, colonel freeleigh. i was delighted when i discovered that the time machine the boys had discovered was the colonel and how he was able to transport him with his memories. i also adored miss helen loomis not only for her unconventional romance with william forrester. but her bravery when it came to death for as she explained:

"i'm not afraid. when you love as long as i've lived you lose that, too. i never liked lobster in my life, and mainly because i'd never tried it. on my eightieth birthday i tried it. i can't say i'm greatly excited over lobster still, but i have no doubt as to it's taste now, and i don't fear it. i dare say death will be a lobster, too, and i can come to terms with it."

it is true nobody likes death but we all have to try it once.

bradbury filled this book with clever little lessons like this, some sad yet true and others happy and promising. and it feels one with joy, nostalgia and whimsy as they read. just writing this i am filled with that warmth, the kind that one would assume that can only be found in a bottle of "dandelion wine." so go pick up a copy and fill your glass!*

ps i feel like i didn't go into too deep analyze on this one especially cos i love it but there is something about it that is indescrible and you just have to read it for yourself.





*sorry that cheesy but i really love this book so please forgive me.

everything is illuminated. jonathan safran foer. (38)

i first read "everything is illuminated" back in 2005.  i read somewhere that elijah wood was making a movie based on it, so i decided to read the book before the movie came out.  however, after reading the book i could not imagine someone capturing the beauty of it in a film, so i decided to not watch the film.  i knew the film would break my heart and disappoint me.  (check out my blog on the movie version.)

i loved this book the first time i read it.  and after my re-reading, i can add it to my list of favorite books of all time.  there is so much that i loved about this book and when i re-read it, it was just as good the second time around.  

the novel is the story of jonathan safran foer's (the protagonist and the author have the same name) search for a woman, augustine.  augustine is a woman in a photo that his left to him by his grandfather.  it is assumed that the woman helped him escape nazis and so foer goes on a search for her.  this is the basis and i would go into more detail but i want you to check it out and i don't want to spoil it for you.

first and foremost i loved reading alex's narrative because of his poor yet clever english.  the best description of his english was written by francine prose for a new york times review, "not since anthony burgess's novel 'a clockwork orange' has the english lesson been simultaneously mauled and energized with such brilliance and such brio."  (i think this is on the back cover.)  alex really does butcher the english lesson but it was done brilliantly.  and just as i loved picking up the slang of that alex and his gang, i loved reading alex's bad yet clever translations.  

alex's vocabulary:

dub-  nickname:  ". . . my many friends dub me Alex"

spleening- to make angry:  "If you want to know why I always spleening her, it is because I am always elsewhere with friends, and disseminating so much currency . . ."

to be carnal- to have sex:  "Many girls want to be carnal with me in many good arrangements, notwithstanding the Inebriated Kangaroo, the Gorky Tickle and the Unyielding Zookeeper.

miniature-  little:  "I have a miniature brother . . ."

promenading- walking:  " . . . Father dubs him Clumsy One, because he is always promenading into things."

the novel is divided into two narratives, alex's letters to jonathan about the search for augustine and jonathan's family history.  as much as i loved reading alex's letters to jonathan, i looked forward to reading the sections written by jonathan.  jonathan writes about this ancestors and their lives in trachimbrod before the nazis come.  his family history is a delight to read because they are like myths and with foer's (the actual author) colorful language, there is an element of magic to them.  

my favorite myths were:

the celebration of trachimday and how they would recreate the day that trachim b died and brod was found.

tale of the dial.  which is actually a gold cast of jonathan's great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, who while working in a mill has a saw lodged into his head.  his statue becomes a symbol of good luck and young men pay tribute to him on their wedding day.

the wisps of ardisht.  which are a clan that are worried about running out of matches, which would prevent them from smoking cigarettes until a child figures that one cigarette can light another which results in a smoking schedule.

one myth that kinda grossed me out was, safran, jonathan's grandfather and his wimpy arm.  his arm didn't gross me out but his sex life that started at the age of 10 grossed me out.  

i also loved the list of the 613 sadnesses which were found on brod's body.  my two favorite sadnessws were the "sadness of could-have-been" and "sadness of love without a release" (i feel like this one would be a great band name.)

here is an excerpt from that part:

The following encyclopaedia of sadness was found on the body of Brod D. The original 613 sadnesses, written in her diary, corresponded to the 613 commandments of our (not their) Torah. Shown below is what was salvageable after Brod was recovered. (Her diary’s wet pages printed the sadnesses onto her body. Only a small fraction [55] were legible. The other 558 sadness are lost forever, and it is hoped that, without knowing what they are, no one will have to experience them.) The diary from which they came was never found.

SADNESSES OF THE BODY: Mirror sadness; Sadness of [looking] like or unlike one’s parents; Sadness of not knowing if your body is normal; Sadness of knowing your [body is] not normal; Sadness of knowing your body is normal; Beauty sadness; Sadness of m[ake]up; Sadness of physical pain; Pins-and-[needles sadness]; Sadness of clothes [sic]; Sadness of the quavering eyelid; Sadness of a missing rib; Noticeable sad[ness]; Sadness of going unnoticed; The sadness of having genitals that are not like those of your lover; The sadness of having genitals that are like those of your lover; Sadness of hands…..
SADNESSES OF THE COVENANT: Sadness of God’s love; Sadness of God’s back [sic]; Favourite-child sadness; Sadness of b[ein]g sad in front of one’s God; Sadness of the opposite of belief [sic]; Sadness of God alone in heaven; Sadness of a God who would need people to pray to him….
SADNESSES OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood [sic]; Humor sadness; Sadness of love wit[hou]t release; Sadne [ss of be] ing smart; Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean]; Sadness of having options; Sadness of wanting sadness; Sadness of confusion; Sadness of domes[ti]cated birds; Sadness of fini[shi]ng a book; Sadness of remembering; Sadness of forgetting; Anxiety Sadness…
INTERPERSONAL SADNESSES: Sadness of being sad in front of one’s parent; Sa[dn]ness of false love; Sadness of love [sic]; Friendship sadness; Sadness of a bad convers[at]ion; Sadness of the could-have-been; Secret sadness….
SADNESSES OF SEX AND ART: Sadness of arousal being an unordinary physical state; Sadness of feeling the need to create beautiful things;…Kissing Sadness; Sadness of moving too quickly; Sadness of not mo[vi]ng; Nude model sadness; Sadness of portraiture…..

(see how brillant and clever it is.  you need to check it out.)

without spoiling it for anyone, the story of alex's grandfather was so sad.  it is easy to judge however to be in that situation, i'm not sure many of us have the courage to do the right thing.  it is also a demonstration of what a challenging and horrible time in history the holocaust was.  it made monsters out of average people. 

i could go on and on about how great this book, is but i think i would give away too much.  i would also have quote after quote to the point where the blog would pretty much be just the book.  so i will stop here and just encourage you to read it.  it really is an amazing book and i love it dearly and know that you will love it dearly too.

quotations:

"if there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft, red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweller's felt so that we should never hear it. love me, because love doesn't exist, and i have tried everything that does."

"one day you will do things for me that you hate. that is what it means to be family."

"the more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. it surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say i love you."

"the only thing more painful than being an active forgetter is to be an inert rememberer."

"from space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. not light, exactly, but a glow that could be confused for light - a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes."

   

breakfast at tiffany's. truman capote. (6)

i absolutely love audrey hepburn's holly golightly. i always watch "breakfast at tiffany's" filled with envy. if only i could have her sense of style (and petite frame)! my dream item is her shades. one of my favorite scenes is when she is peering over them at the girlie show! i googled, i can own a pair of oliver goldsmith's "manhattan", they reissued them last year. but what i admired most was that she was so cool and it was so effortless. i mean my favorite outfit was the mens dress shirt as a nightgown complete with eyelashed sleeping mask and ear plugs (seriously does anyone know where i can find her ear plugs?). such a cute outfit, and yet it was something she slept in!

hepburn was so delightful and charming, you can't help but fall in love with her. i was so excited about reading the novella, but at the same time wondered if it had the same whimsical magic of the film? i know most films ruin books, but i love hepburn's verison of golightly so much, that i couldn't imagine another. however, there was nothing to worry about. the movie stayed true to the book (well as much as society standards would permit back then) and majority of the lines i loved came straight from the novella. and the crazy thing is that most of the storyline stayed the same (there are some major difference but read it for yourself, i promise you won't be disappointed). even with the sameness, surprisingly the film's "golightly" is completely different from the book verison.

as cool as she is in the movie, holly golightly is even hipper in the book. she is this raw, no nonsense, do-as-she-pleases, free-spirited boheminian. as much as i want to be her in the movie, i would much rather be her in the book (well minus all of the sally tomato and jose drama). she is edgier and way ahead of her time when it comes to sex and drugs. it's like this perfect person you always admired ends up having a sailor mouth and does drugs. its kinda like discovering that your grandma cusses (which grandma bea does and did shock me when i first heard her. lol)

holly was never much of a lady in the movie, she did drink at all hours, had numerous male callers, and did go to girlie shows. but that is all child's play in comparison to her behavior in the book. i was shocked that she smoked pot. she also used phrases like "nigger-lip" and "preggers". and though it was implied that she got around in the film, it didn't prepare me for hearing a story about her being bit during sex or advising her friend to have sex with the lights on!??! (remember this was 1950s) here are some things i was shock to hear (well read) from her lips:

"rusty thinks i should smoke marijuana, and i did for a while, but it only makes me giggle"

"i told him look, darling, you've got the wrong miss go-lightly, i'm not a nurse that does tricks on the side."

"i wish, please don't laugh--but i wish i'd been a virgin for him . . ."

the most shocking was how open she was when it came to sexual orientation. i know i shouldn't be too shocked considering capote's sexual orientation. but i was surprised to hear her speak so frankly about it in the 1950s (i mean this was the era of joan cleaver). she used phrases like "dyke", "bull dyke" and was convinced that rusty was gay. but she wasn't opposed to homosexuality. in fact, she thought it was fine for people to be in love with members of their sex. for as she explains, "of course people couldn't help but think i must be a bit of a dyke myself. and of course i am. everyone is: a bit."

even greater are her views on marriage equality:

a person ought to be able to marry men or women or--listen, if you came to me and said you wanted to hitch up with Man o' War, i'd respect your feeling. no, i'm serious. love should be allowed. i'm all for it."

i love that last quote not only for showing how silly it is for us to be concern with who others want to marry. but also because it reminded me of when my friend miguel when he told a panel of judges, it shouldn't matter if he loved men, women or giraffes on bravo's "step it up and dance".

but even all this aside, i fell in love with holly golightly for the same reason, one does in the film. her quirks (the stealing, not giving her cat a name becaus they don't belong to each other, her visits to tiffany's) and of course the little tibbits of life advice she gives out.

on diamonds:
"it's like tiffany's. not that i give a hott about jewelry. diamonds, yes. but it's tacky ot wear diamonds before you're forty; and even that's risky."

her mean reds:
" . . . the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. you're sad, that's all. but te mean reds are horrible. you're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. except something bad is going to happen, I ly you don't know what it is."

her free-spiritedness:

"i don't want to own anything until i know i've found the place where me and things belong together."
-her card that read "miss holiday golightly, traveling." which were made because as she explained "after all, how do i know where i'll be leaving tomorrow."-her singing of "don't wanna sleep, don't wanna die, just wanna go-atravelin' through the pastures of the sky" (ps in the book, "fred" gives her a st. christopher medal from tiffany's. i googled and he is a patron saint of travelers. adorable huh. also i googled and you can purchase a st. christopher medal from tiffany's. i might!)

her musing on love:"never love a wild thing, mr. bell . . .but you can't give your heart a wild thing: the more you do, th estronger they get. until they're srong enough to run into the woods. or fly into a tree . . . if you let yourself love a wild thing. you'll end up looking at the sky."
"--i love new york, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street, or a house, something, anyaway, tha tbelongs to me cause i belong to it."

such a character and what a mess but a charming one. i actually think i will put this on my list of 30 before 30. she doesn't make the best decisions in life, but i think she has some great tidbits that one should live by. also who doesn't love a kinky pot smoker who supports gay marriage? so yes, definitely worth the read.