great expectations. charles dickens. (155)

a couple months ago i purchased a used kate spade great expectations book clutch.  they normally run $328 but lucky me i found it used and in good condition for $62 on poshmark!  and as much as i love it, it isn't worth the $300, i mean its laminated!  but $62, yes it is.  but here it is:  

anyway, i felt like a poser because i never    read all of great expectations yet here i was carrying it around as a purse.  it was an assigned reading my senior year but i totally cliffnoted it. (i had a really bad case of senioritis).  i knew pip and of course remembered miss havisham, but they were all i could recall.  well i did have an scene in my head of someone, running in and tearing down the curtains in miss havisham's room, but i think that was because of the movie because this scene, i would discovered on this reading did not occur in the book.  

this rereading or actual first reading of great expectations epitomizes why i started this lets-read-those-high-school-assigned-readings-now project!  because i regret not reading this the first time i was assigned it.  i will admit that 30

year old me is a better reader than 17 year old me (i remember being lost vocab wise.  those macbeth references definitely would

have been lost on me the first time!) which may be the reason for my enjoying great expectations on this round but i absolutely loved it.  there were so many twists and turns and sadly (or gratefully) i didn't pay any attention in class because i did not recall any of them so i was actually surprised!  i mean even the identity of pip's benefactor caught me off guard.  (in retrospect, i deserved that b+ in ap engish).  modern day soap operas have nothing on this dicken's classic, it was amazing how everyone's secret connections were revealed in the end. i really was not expecting any of it. 

i won't rehash the story since the story is so well known.  or give a deep analysis other than looks can be deceiving.  plus the most important lesson of just because a person is high class doesn't mean they are classy and the vice versa being in the low class doesn't mean you are trashy.

i do want to discuss my love for certain characters.  who doesn't adore joe with his heart of gold and love for pip? society would not have labelled him a man of good manners and pedigree but there was no denying that he was a loyal and reliable friend.  i thought it was amazing that though "poor" he had the means to settle pip's debt in the end.  i was also happy he got a happy ending with biddy and kids of his own!!

i also enjoyed wemmick and his two personas, not mixing business with pleasure.  his home self was the best, how he took care of his aged parent.  and the surprise wedding could not have been more adorable! i had a total book crush on him!

and though she was batty, you can not deny that miss havisham was great.  i mean she would make an excellent halloween costume!  one would need a wedding dress, once white now yellow, one shoe on also once white now yellow, and a watch stopped at twenty to nine.  she was scary but such an excellent villain that you can't help but love her.  and in the end,  like the grinch her heart does turn three times in size and she regretted what she did to estrella.

i love/hated pip.  i hated how he treated joe when he came into his great expectations.  i hated how he was in love with estrella though she was proud, their first day together was a red flag that she would make him miserable.  but he redeemed himself when he accepted and helped his benefactor.  also i loved how he secretly helped herbert and made sure miss havisham did too.  

but i must add that my disapproval of his love for estrella caused me to dislike the ending and i wish the original ending was the standard ending.  the ending i read was all hollywood where pip and estrella randomly meet up at miss havisham.  she recently discovered, he in town for a visit.  they meet and it's hinted that they end up together.  boo!!! because he was not worthy of her love!

in the original ending, estella discovered the spider and fell in love with a poor doctor.  she and pip run into each other on the street.  pip has joe's son with him and she assume it is his and that his life is better without her (which it is) and he sees that she has actually has a heart and is capable of love!  

i like that ending because they both become better people which i doubt would have occurred if they ended up together.  

though i will add if they originally ended up together out of actual true love i could have dealt with it.  how happy would pip's benefactor be to discover that his the wife of his gentleman was his daughter!  so for his sale i would have been okay with it.

i am glad i ended up enjoying great expectations as much as i did because i would have felt lame carrying that clutch around if i didn't.

also if you were in mr. brice's class with me and didn't read this, you really should!

amendment:  so after posting this on fb i thought to myself, maybe we didn't read this in brice, so i consulted my classmates.  we didn't, it was assigned our freshman year!  freshman year!! there was definitely no way 14 year old me could have got this!  but i will add, i did get an a in that class.  lol

of mice and men. john steinbeck.

i read "of mice and men" in high school but all i really remember was lenny and his rabbits.  and the dopey voice in which i read lenny's dialogue.

but when "grapes of wrath" jumped to the top of my "to-read" list because of the penguin book truck stopping in bakersfield for a retracing of the route from "the grapes of wrath", i decided to reread "of mice of men".  okay more like actually read, i may not have read all of it in high school.  also figured it would be a nice note to end banned books week on.

i was surprised that "of mice and men" was so well written.  since steinbeck's characters are okies, i always imagine him as one.  silly, i know especially since i just learned via wikipedia that he went to stanford.  also, i am not saying okies aren't educated or intelligent people, but a stereotypical okie is a hick and i always imaged steinbeck as coming from that culture.

one thing that struck me on this rereading, was the foreshadowing of lenny's fate by old candy's dog.  as soon as the reader meets lenny, one knows he is marked for doom, kind of like piggy from "lord of the flies."  you just know they are going to die in the end.  this doom then becomes cemented with story of old candy's dog.  old candy has a dog that according to the others is worthless and a nuisance, but old candy loves him and his companionship. however, the other men decide that the dog must go and another man goes out and shoots him.

the shooting of old candy's dog frames george shooting lenny in the end.  taken out of context, it sounds horrible, man shoots best friend, however, it was not that simple.  george had to be the one that shot lenny because he loved him the most.  it was a mercy kill and could only be one if performed by george.  if curly shot him, it would not have been the same, as demonstrated with old candy's dog  it was a bittersweet ending for lenny, but better he died at the hands of a friend than an enemy. it was a difficult act but was assuaged by george's telling of their dream farm, at least lenny passed on with peaceful thoughts and images in his mind.

i don't recall the moral that we learned from "of mice of men" while in high school.  as i mentioned before all i remember was lenny and his rabbits and his inability to pet things gently.

i watch and love a youtube called "thug notes" in which a thug breaks down beloved classics into thug terms.  (if you haven't seen or heard of it, go watch an episode) and they have a great analysis of the novel.  "of mice of men" is a demonstration of how there really is no "american dream" and though motivational, it ultimately sets individuals up for failure.   for as thug notes explained that in a culture of exploitation, in which individuals lose their basic rights, dreams are unachievable.  

furthermore, these dreams result in  abuse and discrimination among the lower classes due to disenfranchisement.  in a college course, i remember discussing this in terms of the dust bowl. disenfranchized farmers, who had lost their farms to the banks, as a means to exert their power, became racist and sexist towards blacks and women.  this is demonstrated with curley's wife.  though it appears at first that curley's wife is a bit of a floozy but after hearing her backstory it is demonstrated that she is part of this cycle of abuse.  (for you "how i met your mother" fans, kind of like the cycle of yelling).  curley, who had a napolean complex in addition to being powerless by the farming system, exerts his power and his abusive towards his wife.  curley's wife, who is jaded by dreams of being pictures and thinks she deserved better in life, takes the abusive from curley but then exerts her power over crooks.   crooks though intelligent and a hardworker suffers because during that time, blacks were the lowest rung in society.  it's sad because here is a group of people that should have worked together to better their life situation but instead abused each other in order to feel powerful.  (sorry i might sound like a communist but i didn't say ban together to overthrow the government but ban together to ensure their basic rights.)

i must add that i also agree with the judeochristian undetones "of mice and men" that thug notes discussed.  though i disagree with their analysis about it being a theme of man's reason (geroge) conquering (shooting) animal instinct (lenny). i saw the shooting more as an demonstration of innocence and selfless needing to be destroyed in order to succed in a capitalistic economy.  greed is the driving force of capitalism (see: monopoly), and lenny did not have this, so he would have never achieved his dream.  furthermore, lenny was the ideal worker, he worked hard and didn't question anything, just did his work, and yet he was still crushed by the world, demonstrating that the labor force though key to the economy will ultimately be destroyed.  (wow, okay, i might be a communists).

but politics aside, at its very core, "of mice and men" is beautiful tale of friendship.  though at times george was a bit harsh with lenny, in the end, he loved him and vice versa.  it was beautiful to see to which lengths a friend will go to protect their friend.  

this book really has so many layers and it is quite short, which is prove how great of a writer steinbeck is.  this book is also a banned book.  based on my googling, it was banned for his profanity, use of the n-word, lack of traditional values, and i am going to assume the whorehouses.  but lets be honest, it is probably due to is critique of the american dream and capitalism, and of course probably having communist undertones. 

metamorphosis. franz kafka. again.

i am a bad blogger.  this google doodle informed me that july 3 was franz kafka's birthday.  i then wrote the following blog not realizing i had already done a post on it.  but decided to leave it because though it has the same idea, i do make some better points.  enjoy a rehashing of "the metamorphosis":

i originally read "the metamorphosis" my senior year of high school.  and i actually did read it.  i found the premise interesting, a man that morphs into a cockroach.  the only thing that left a real impression on me was the apple that got lodged in gregor's back (when he was in roach form) after someone threw it at him.  it made me sad to imagine him stuck with an apple in his back for the rest of his life or until it rotted.  and imagine the kind of infection an apple could cause!   i remember drawing a roach with an apple in his back for a project in which we had to draw what was going on in gregor's mind.  in addition to the apple, milk comes to mind when i think of this book but because i think he was fed it.  i mean do roaches find milk appetizing?  but other than that i don't recall any deeper meaning.

upon my re-reading as an adult, the lesson that i learned from this novella, was not to be a slave to your job.  work can alienate you from the people you love and can lead to lonelieness.  this interpretation can also be my millennial point-of-view on work looking for validation.  work should be something that adds to life not takes away from it.  in "metamorphosis", all gregor had was work and that turned him into a monster, literally.  i mean how else can you interpret cockroach?  though i learned on wikipedia that a better translation for the word kafka used is vermin, so maybe gregor isn't supposed to be a roach?  but i think it works best for imagery purposes, so i am okay with the translator that chose cockroach.

prior to gregor's metamorphosis, his life centered around his work.   gregor was a traveling salesman and worked towards paying off his family's debt.  as a result of his traveling, he had no social life or identity beyond his occupation.  gregor realized that his work did not allow him to have friends and all he really had was his family.  his loneliness is demonstrated by his framed magazine picture of the woman in furs.  he is like a teenage girl filled with love but with no real person in her life so it is directed toward whatever teenage heartthrob is popular at the time.     though gregor was lonely, in his human form he could have changed his life, but sadly as a cockroach that was not possible.

the sadder realization is that gregor's life as a human was not much different than his life as a cockroach.  the only difference is that there was a physical manifestation of his alienation versus the immaterial one of his job.  as a roach, his interaction with his family was limited based on his appearance as a bug. his mother was scared of him, his father was worried, though his sister was in tune with his needs, overall they were primarily concerned by how his condition affected their income.   however, this would have been the same if he was a human, his job limited his interaction with his family since he travelled. also the emotions of his family would have been the same, since gregor was the breadwinner of the family, they saw him more in terms of their income versus a person.  this is demonstrated by the parents immediate fear of the cockroach versus his sister who still considered the cockroach as gregor.  

gregor's sister was the only person who saw gregor as a person in his human form.  this is demonstrated in her giving him milk in the beginning, which was his favorite drink and which he did not like as a cockroach (so to answer my other question, roaches do not like milk). however, even her opinion of him changed because she started to treat gregor as a cockroach.  she fed him scraps and garbage and moved furniture so it is easier for him to crawl around.  it seems sad that his sister's

opinion changed but gregor and his sister's relationship would have probably become estranged even if gregor remained in his human form.  all relationships take work even the ones that we assumed are givens like family relations.  if gregor continued to work as he did, the physical distance would have caused gregor and his sister to grow apart.  gregor initially was happy to work to support his sister however i could imagine him becoming resentful

of it later.  

i think kafka wanted us all to realize that work is not the means to happiness in life.  one needs social interaction with people to be happy. in a sociology class i took at ucla, i read excerpts for the book "working" by studs terkel.  from what i can recall, people's self-identity is very much intertwined with their occupation even though they may not enjoy working.   i remember discussing how the expectation of work as something enjoyable is ridiculous since by definition work is hard physical labor.  the point was made in the book or maybe the class that in the bible, work was initially a form of punishment.  adam was casted out of the garden of eden and focused to labor for taking a bite of the forbidden fruit.  from the very beginning (if you believe in a judeo-christian religion) work was a punishment.  therefore, since work is not a source of joy, it should not be the main focus of our lives.  

i know that this must sound like selfish millennial talk but whereas my generation's view of work is rooted in the fact that everyone got a participation reward regardless of their effort growing up; kafka's novel is a warning of not allowing work to crush the human spirit.  regardless of gregor's physical appearance, he was still gregor.  his mind was not effected by the metamorphosis, he still thought like a human.  granted gregor couldn't communicate like a human as a cockroach (though i think that was to demonstrate how as a human, gregor was never communicated how he actually felt), he still had a sound mind.  and perhaps that is the real lesson of "metamorphosis", regardless of the fact that work can change one beyond recognition, it can never truly change one's soul.  though gregor changed physically he was still the same

person spiritually, he still cared for his family and felt guilty about being a burden to them.  there was still something human about gregor especially since he responded to the music that his sister played.  therefore, gregor serves as a warning to what can happen if you allow work to consume your life.  one must find time to develop their soul and not just work.  i think it is important to point out that kafka didn't view all work as evil.  when the family began working for themselves there was an improvement in their lives.  so maybe kafka just wants us to find a nice balance, work is fine just do not become consumed by it.

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.

the house on mango street. sandra cisneros.

the kern county library has a program called one book in which i am assuming the community reads one book and there are a bunch of related events. in celebration of national hispanic month, sandra cisneros' "the house on mango street" was chosen as the one book for september-november. and even more exciting cisneros is giving a talk for the program! when i found out about the talk i decided to reread "the house on mango street" in preparation if i attend the talk.

i think i read "the house on mango street" in high school. it was assigned and i actually read it. (it is short). but i bought a copy after i read in then. i actually read my own og one versus checking it out, though i did notice that the library had new copies due to the one book program. (random: i recently came across another copy with a different cover at a $1 bookstore and purchased that one because i sadly do judge books by their covers.)

i remember loving this book in high school. the part that stuck with me all these years is when the discussion of her name "esperanza". i loved the metaphor of her name as silver chewing gum wrapper because its hard to pronounce. the actual line goes:

"at school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth."

i remember being so impressed with her imagery. i have difficulty pronouncing spanish names and words and it does feel like chewing tin. since i have a name that is always mispronounced, this part left such an impression on me.

this line also exemplifies what i love about cisneros, her poetic flair. cisneros really is a poet. each chapter reads like a poem instead of a short story. her book is filled with clever and beautiful imagery:

"our laughter for example. not the shy ice cream bells' giggle of rachel and lucy's family, but all of a sudden and surprised like a stack of dishes breaking."

"in english my name means hope. in spanish it means too many letters. it means sadness, it means waiting. it is like the number nine. a muddy color. it is the mexican records my father plays on sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing

"you can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad."

her words really are lovely.

i also connected with this work, culturally. thanks to grandma bea i am 1/8 mexican but a very americanized one. a coconut. however thanks to growing up in delano, i am mexican culturally. people are always shocked that i can cumbia, know about the cucuy and eat elote. growing up in delano, you are inevitably mexican. and though i didn't grow up in the slums of delano, i understood how esperanza felt growing up. the insecurity of not having the right shoes at a family party, understanding the power of rubbing a egg when you have a fever and feeling safe in the dingy part of town. and though there were some things i do not know first hand, i can empathize because i know someone who has. (well maybe not the sexual abuse part.)

the part that had a bigger impact on me now than in high school was the chapter "papa who wakes up tired in the dark". the reason for the change is that my grandpa jimmy passed away in the time between my two readings. in this chapter, her papa told her that her grandfather passed away and she saw for the first time her father vulnerable and sad. this reminded me of how at my grandpa's funeral i was struck by the thought that though this was difficult for me, i could not imagine how my mom and aunts and uncles felt because that was their dad. and that it is sad to lose a grandparent, losing a father is greater lost. cisneros described it as:

"and i think if my own papa died what would i do. i think if my own papa died what would i do."

and i guess this is what i loved, is that she captured life. there is an openness and honesty in her work. it felt very autobiographical (all fiction is in some way or another). but she wrote about life and how it is not alway ideal but the human spirit perseveres.

(if you are in delano or bakersfield, pick up a copy. it's a short read. and check out her talk this thursday, 11.8.12 at csub.)

fahrenheit 451. ray bradbury. (51)

i actually read ray bradbury's "fahrenheit 451" when it was assigned to me in high school. shocking i know. i even read it without the aid of cliffnotes and i loved. i remember thinking the premise was very clever, a firefighter that burned books and admiring clarisse for her wisdom. and since back than i was a bookworm, i appreciated its endorsement of reading books.

so when ray bradbury passed away in june, i decided to reread this classic in addition to his other books. sadly, this was the only one i read prior to his death.

and re-reading it as an adult, i still found clarisse wise beyond her years. i admired her family for still reading books. and i hoped that if bradbury's dystopia ever came to life, my future family would know the wonder that is books.

since it has been 10 years since i read it, there were two things that were different for me the second time around. one is due to the way the world has changed and the other because i have changed.

the first thing that stood out to me was how our current society is sadly on its way to being the pill-popping wall parlor-watching population of guy montag's world. i was a teenager when i first read this and therefore, mass media was everything. growing up in middle of nowhere, california, it was the only access to the outside world. as a result, i wasn't too critical of guy's wife and her friends. in fact, this aspect of the book did not make an impact on me, i just assumed that big televisions were simply the way of the future. the future in movies, shows and cartoons id always depicted with large tv screens. also back in 2000 when i read this, reality tv was just coming into play, and i was obsessed with mtv's real world, so i was okay with where the future was headed. fast forward twelve years to today and i am now worried about the extremes of tv, really folks a 3D tvs?!?! today with reality tv shows being the main source of entertainment and twitter giving us access to celebrities 24 hours a day, we are about two seasons away from the dialogued tv days of mildred montag. and don't get me wrong, i do my fair share of bravo watching and tweeting but i also average about 4 books a month so i think i am excused. but tv watching is extreme now we watch it everywhere, like seriously everywhere thanks to tablet and smartphones. and with the decline of bookstores (hopefully due to the rise of ereaders versus lack of reading), i worry that reading is out of fashion. (with the exception of nyc, people actually read there so kudos to them.). and i think that is scarier than censorship. society censoring books is a lot less dangerous than them simply not reading, the burning of books is at least a recognition of their power.

the other thing that changed was my perspective of guy montag. which i took as an indication of my maturity, thank goodness i am not still the same snot-nosed teen.) he wasn't the hero of my youth, in fact, i found myself frustrated and appalled by his reaction in situations. there were so many errors he made because he let his emotions get the best of him. what i saw as passion as a teen, i now saw as hotheadedness as an adult. guy reacted emotionally in situations when he needed to be rational. guy had a lot of heart but sadly he lacked the brains to make a difference in the world. he had the right ideals for the world but he did not have the means to put them into action. as a result, he ended up causing more harm to the cause than helping it flourish. and so what i once saw as a tale of doing what you believe in regardless of the consequences, is actually a warning that in order to start a revolution you need heart and brains. it's sad because i guess i lost my fiery spirit but with it also my naïveté about how the world works. passion can only take you so far in changing the world you also have to rely on intelligence and selflessness, you need to work for the greater good versus your own satisfaction.

the copy i read also had a great afterword or maybe a foreword (?) written by bradbury. in which he shared how he wrote "fahrenheit 451" in the basement of powell. he also wrote a wonderful mini manifesto about censorship that made me regret never seeing him in person. the afterword also gave me a new found respect for "fahrenheit 451." and if "dandelion wine" wasn't on my 30 before 30, this would be on it like flavorpill's list.

and if you are reading this, for the love of ray bradbury, please continue to read!!! feast upon them like the fire chief (cue gasp!), "i ate them like salad, books were my sandwich for lunch, my tiffin and dinner and midnight munch."

frankenstein. mary shelley.

back in october, i decided to do this whole monster books reading in honor of halloween.  i picked mary shelley's "frankenstein" to start.

if you are a hardcore fan of this blog, you may have noticed that i didn't number this one.  it lacks a number because i didn't check it out from the library. i read my own copy.  my copy is ten years old and a souvenir from my time on the delano high school academic decathlon team.  sadly, like any other required high school reading, i did not read "frankenstein." what makes my non-reading even sadder is the fact that i had a class period specifically for academic decathon in which we spent weeks reading the novel and i still did not read it.  in my (our team's) defense, our advisor left us in the asb room to read on our own.  i know we were the nerds/geeks of the school, but we were still teens and some of us were starting to show symptoms of senioritis.  when given the choice between reading or playing with random toys leftover from afternoon rally games, we always chose the later.  (sorry ms. andreas if you are reading this.)

and sorry mary shelley but the 28 year old me got why the 17 year old could not get into the book. it is quite slow to start. at first the book is a series of letters from captain walton to his sister explaining his voyage to the north pole. it all seems unnecessary until we find out that captain walton saw some monster out in the ice and then finds victor frankenstein who then shares the story of his monster making. (side note: i would also like to encourage everyone to stop calling the green monster with bolts in his neck, frankenstein, he is actually frankenstein's monster. frankenstein is the scientist. i think a modern family episode covered this but wanted to reiterate the distinction.)

back to the creature making, i personally found it disappointing. i was expecting a grandiose and grotesque description of how the creature was created start to finish but there wasn't that much detail. i get that shelley prolly did not have an strong bio background but she could have utilized her imagination more . . . though i guess the whole creating life from human remains is original on its own and i, having grown up with frankenstein's monster every halloween, find it commonplace so i may have had too great of expectations . . . sorry shelley for being so harsh.

i was really harsh on shelley a second time, when frankenstein came into contact with his creation for the second time. i was upset cos all of sudden the creature knew how to talk. i was tempted to stop reading right there and then due to that being so far fetch (i know, like creating a monster is so realistic). but i read on and accepted how he was educated. i really wanted things to work out with him and that family. it was so sweet how he did chores for them. so i was extremely sad when the old man was scared of him. i know the creature turns into a monster but he just wanted to be loved.

it's interesting because even with all the killing he does, i did have a soft spot for the creature. he turns into to monster for understandable reasons; rejection by the ones he loved the most and the realization that he would never have a future mate and would be left all alone in this world. (i mean we all sided with carrie bradshaw in the first sex and the city movie when she went crazy for the same reasons!) also if frankenstein would have nurtured his creation at the beginning versus rejecting him, the creature would have never turn into a monster. (there is an early child development thesis in there somewhere). and they all could have lived happily ever after.

maybe i am just optimistic but i really believe that if frankenstein created a mate for his creature, she would not have turned into a monster. i understood his worries about her rejecting the original creature as a mate or her being just as violent the first, but he was only violent due to lack of affection . . . and then not getting his way (but his demand was for a mate would equate as affection as well). i believe she was would have learned by example just like he did. the creature's ability to learn how to care for others based on the example of the brother and sister caring for their blind father proved he was a blank slate with some kind of "soul" versus innately evil and soulless. he would have never attempted to do chores for them if by nature he was evil; he had to have a heart to respond as he did. so if frankenstein set up a loving environment for the mate, she would have developed according. (again a ECD thesis.)

all of this reminded me of kazuo ishiguro's "never let me go" and it's questioning of whether a man-made life would still have a "soul"? being one that doesn't believe too strongly in religion, i believe that yes the creatures created like frankenstein's creature and the children of "never let me go" would have a soul but not one necessarily issued by god. i believe that the essence within humans and animals to nurture their young ultimately is what constitute a soul. one possess a soul, if they show the ability to care for another's life and well-being, which therefore demonstrates the understanding of the sacredness of life. it can be assumed that i am supporting the idea that god gives everything souls when in fact, i believe that we gain our "souls" as we gain knowledge. which i guess is kinda how adam and eve started. but it's not something that is just given via god but developed from our environment. so due to this both frankenstein's "monster" and the clones of "never let me go" have souls and should have been treated as so. also in the future when we do start cloning people, i will still stick to my declaration above.

so i guess mary shelley's frankenstein is a lot deeper than just a monster story. aside from sorting out what is a soul, maybe it's suppose to be a discussion on religion as well? the subtitle is "the modern promethus", i guess frankenstein stole the secret of life from the gods? or is god like victor frankenstein? creating humans and then being frighten by us, abandon us to roam the earth? thus religion is our search to come to terms with what we are, just as the creature sought out frankenstein? all in all, i am glad that i finally read this, it wasn't too much of a page turner for me but has some important underlying themes.

also i wikipedia'ed shelley because i was curious as to whether she received recognition as the writer because she was a woman. it's interesting cos i always think of the past as being prim and proper but there was a lot of scandals in her life. she believed in free love and her sister got knocked up by lord byron. i mean it's the stuff of british tabloids!

selected stories of franz kafka. franz kafka. (2)

trying to revisit my high school years, i decided to read franz kafka's "the metamorphosis" next.  also i had read haruki murakami's "kafka on the shore" and had been meaning to pick up some kafka.  all i remember from "the metamorphosis" was that gregor turned into a giant cockroach and of course that apple getting stuck in his back.  for some odd reason, that apple stuck on his back really stuck with my group of high school's friends (we were dorks remember). i think my friend mona in particular was traumatized by its occurrence.  i personally can't think of metamorphosis without picturing a large roach with an apple.  (this would make a good halloween costume . . . my friend chrissie has a cockroach costume, i am going to recommend that she does it.)

back to the novel.  on my second reading, i still felt bad for gregor.  bad enough he turns into a bug but his family is frightened of him.  (quick side note:  but apparently gregor doesn't necessarily turn into a cockroach, the word kafka uses doesn't translate into cockroach, in fact it is closer to vermin, so it's kinda open to interpretation, for me personally i use the cockroach one.)   it even sadder how his family abandons him, especially since he spent his human life supporting them. his sister does start off helping him, but then she grows tired of the task and disgusted by him.  and which makes it even more heartbreaking is the fact that he was working to help support his sister in her violin playing.   if my sister or brother or even close friend turned into a giant bug, i wouldn't abandon them like, but would take care of them. bugs don't gross me out so am confident i could do it. i would be like geena davis in "the fly".  though in the end, she does kill him, but wasn't it as he requested?

i hate to brag but i was good student in high school yet i don't remember the analysis that was presented to us. now as an adult, i take it as a warning that if you become a slave to money and work, you'll eventually end up a cockroach. prior to turning into a roach, gregor had a sad life (possibly sadder than being a bug), he was a traveling salesman and all he did was work. he did not have a social life and only interacted with his family. this need or demand to work is not healthy for an individual. and in turning gregor into roach, kafka was critiquing the capitalistic emphasis on labor. i guess kafka was a marxist? (i googled but found no definite answer.) marx did have his theory on alienation of workers as a result to their laboring as part of the capitalist machine. and how much more alienated can one get then turning into a cockroach. greogr was alienated not only from his family but also from his own self-identity, he was a stranger in his own body. he turned into something beyond his own recognition. and if kafka wasn't a marxist, he does prove the harm of devoting one's life to work.

in college, i took a soci class and was assigned excerpts from "working" by studs terkel. our professor had us read it to demonstrate how a person's identities is tied into their occupation. it's interesting and true. when meeting someone for the first time, one of the first questions asked is "so what to you do?" this is definitely an american thing (it's due to our capitalist economy). when i was unemployed, i noticed just how frequently this question was asked. when working one doesn't notice but there was a bit of embarrassed me when i answered that i was unemployed though i did start to answer "hanging out" or "enjoying life".

during my two years of unemployment, i had one conversation frequently about this issue of one's work being one's identity. i have a friend who is the model of a worker bee, he is also a capricorn. and he couldn't stomach me when i was not working. but as i often reminded him, i do not want to be defined by my work but by my life. to demonstrate this point, i often said when i die, my gravestone will not list out my work resume, but will instead list if i was mother or wife. furthermore, people will talk about my quality of life at my funeral instead of my salary history. i mean when i am old and going senile, i want to think "wow! what fun i had!" versus "wow! wish i worked less!"

and let me clarify, work is important especially if you want finer things in life. and money is needed to have fun and experiences. however it should not be the source of your identity. and maybe instead of being a marxist statement, this could be what kafka was trying to explain. you should enjoy life because once its gone, you are going to regret that you spent your best years working.

i only read "metamorphosis", i tried to read some of the other works in here but they seemed like a snoozefest so i didn't.

the scarlet letter. nathaniel hawthrone (1)

i decided to start off my classics reading with this book for two reasons.  one being the movie “easy A” and the second being that one of the TAs at the dance studio read it for school and i realized i don’t remember anything from it and i "read" (or cliff noted) it in high school.  so before i discuss the book, i just wanted to give an endorsement for “easy A”, most people have seen it by now, but what a cute movie!  i'm a bit of a movie snob and had no plans to watch it but rented the dvd, and i was pleasantly surprised.  first of all, how cute is emma stone, totally had/have a girl crush on her.  also loved her family in the movie, i hope one day to be a cool parent.  and lastly loved the 80s movies references at the end, why can’t i get a boy to do that for me?  (answer; i’m not a funny yet sexy ginger.)

so the book.  here is all that i remember from my high school reading:

-“scarlet letter” was a slang word that we started to use to describe slutty girls (yeah i was a geek in high school).  there was one girl in particular that was “scarlet r” for reasons that i can’t remember now.

-pearl was referenced as the pearl of great price.  i remember this fact from my days as a mormon.  there is a book of scripture known as the pearl of great price.  i never really read my scriptures like i should have, but i think the pearl of great price offered life advice but in the form of actual advice not like analogies or parables.  i think the whole no caffeine thing is in that book.

here is what i got out of it as an adult:

first of all, i didn't understand why hester and dimmesdale didn't think up the whole plot to run away together earlier in the story.  america wasn't even america yet, it would have been easy for them to start a new life with new identities when they first discovered that she was with child. then "the scarlet letter" would have been their tale of embarking on a new world as parents, which sadly is the premise for "teen mom" . . . nevermind.  but the runaway scenario could never an option because then hawthorne's characters would be cowards and would not uphold the moral of this novel: take responsibility of your actions and suffer whatever consequences may result from them.  one needs to own up to what he/she has done, lie in the bed they made, handle their sh*t.  hester didn't try to deny her actions or escape her punishment. she didn't downplay her scarlet letter but "fantastically embroidered [it] with gold thread" nor did she try to hide her bastard child but pretty much put pearl on display by putting her in "fanciful" attire.  hester embraced her punishment, she didn't try to deny her sin and was a better person for it.  she lived as madonna sought at the end of "human nature" with "absolutely no regrets."  so i guess in this sense, i will have to add hester prynne to my amazing fictional women canon.  i don't know why i never gave her this label in high school, it could be because i didn't realize how much strength it takes to survive being ostracize by society and then having the man you are in love with deny the fact that he impregnated you and then having to raise your nymph-like bastard child on your own and on top of that your creepy husband coming back to haunt you.  i blame cliffnotes, they didn't give me all of this insight.

as an adult, "the scarlet letter" also gave me insight by contextualizing one critique i had of my mormon faith. i was raised mormon but as i learned in history 4, a history of religion course i took at UCLA, the problem i had/have with mormonism (LDS-ism) can be found in all judeo-christian religions, so i am not attacking the mormon faith just relaying my experience. (there are two reasons why i lost faith as a mormon or any other religion for that matter. but it will not be discuss in this post. ps the following critique is not one of those two reasons).

the issue was the utilization of peer pressure to ensure my faithfulness as a member of the church.* i now recognize the pressure that was applied to me by fellow members to live a certain life. there was always a push towards being upright and if you sin, in theory god is forgiving but you should never get to that point. and maybe i was just extremely naive (this might just be the case) but i really believed everyone around me was spotless just like god or jesus because this is what was projected to me. i felt like everyone was doing everything right and that i needed to get my act together to be like them. and i realize that no one meant any harm by trying to get me into heaven. its actually is quite nice of them. but at some point this whole notion of being your brother's keeper can be dangerous. when you begin to feel responsible for someone else's salvation as a means to save yourself, this is when problems start. this is when religion gets scary; when we want others to live according to what we perceive as right.

and who is to say that those with authority know what is going on? and that is what dimmesdale proved. here is a man of god who sins and does not take the very advice that he gave each week from his pulpit. dimmesdale demonstrates that religion should not be treated as an absolute. those with authority in the church are not innately divined but are human and capable of sin and errors like the rest of us. furthermore hester gives light to this discrepancy because the one that was labelled as the sinner by the church and society ultimately was the most christ-like.

also this is not an anti-religion rant, just some thoughts. like i addressed early the above was my personal experience, i know plenty of happy mormons so i am prolly the exception versus the rule.

so you may be wondering, should i reread this? if you have the time yes. but if not there are better classics. i mean hester prynne is a great character but her story isn't too much of a page turner.

also would like to explain a feature of all of my entries which will be my favorite quotes from the works.

favorite quotes:

"my heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire."


*sidenote: all judeo-christian faiths are guilty of this because they are community forming religions. and as a result of being a community, the members inadvertently become responsible for the salvation of each other. this is what prof bartchy taught me in history 4.