I don't want to come off as neglectful in regard to my homework, so I'll be honest about my reading life. After finishing Invisible Cities, I decided to take a small reading break. As most of you know, 'small reading breaks' have a strange tendency to go from a day or so long to a week long... It isn't as though I haven't read anything, but what I've been reading is far from a novel. My literary intake has consisted of Peanuts, Mad (the good ol' black and white ones), Little Lulu, and Tintin. I like to read all of the comic books and graphic novels in my room every few months, so that's what I've been doing. Over the break, When we were supposed to fill out a reading log, I debated over whether or not Ms. Reir would find it to be acceptable if I recorded the thousands of comic book pages I had read. I ended up reading something or other (I really can't remember what I read) and decided to record that instead.
I'm unsure of what we can write about for the blogs this year. Last year, I'd write about the titles or books and billboards I'd read. I remember Ms. Reir saying that the blog would be about our Independent Reading Books, so, I've been curious as to whether or not we're allowed to just write about our reading lives, must we write about novels...? This is not en excuse to slack off, I love novels and read a good handful of them. It's often hard to find a book that lives up to my standards and I don't go to bookstores enough. A few times a month, I'll stumble along a fantastic book, but, really, it happens too rarely. My dad has some very well-read friends that suggest novels to me, but the books that they suggest are often hard to obtain... If books were an abundance in my life, I'd read them constantly. Everything on my book-shelfs has been at least twice and all of my comics at least four times. My parents are always willing to take me to a bookstore, but it's still hard to find something that I actually want to read. And, due to my habit of refusing to leave the house during the weekend, the time that I have for purchasing books is dwindled down even farther.
I was thinking that it would be nice if we had a list of some sort where students could suggest books to one another. I'd really appreciate some suggestions in the comments or some sites that could give me some recommendations. I just really, really, really need a good book, one that I can get lost in...
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Invisible Cities by Calvino
It's silly, the way folks like to look at cities. Tourists, citizens, people scrolling through lists of hotels, all view a group of buildings and a mass of people as one, large blob. Not as small, small components of a fairly debatable environment. This book depicts what a city really is; a place broken down into several different moods, seasons and social cycles. Marco Polo describes what seems to be many cities (but, really, all of this cities are describing one place) to Kublai Khan, a Tartar emperor who's empire is falling. Marco, using either objects or the emperor's native language, illustrates beautiful and tragic places. Cities in the sky, cities hidden, cities that repeatedly fall to ruin and manage to build themselves back up, tediously, monotonically, only to be stripped of their beauty and culture once more. Place with names like Eudoxia, Zobeide, Despina and Olinda. Each city feels either extremely abstract or overly familiar. Calvino managed to break down entire structures and section them off, making what's either overlooked or misunderstood special, unique and different from the blur that we call a city.
Calvino shows use how relations with others (represented as strings, or a mimic city), can grow either tiresome or completely overwhelming. When they become too much, the inhabitants leave, starting anew. Being able to abandon something, but not leave it unresolved! The dream of so many... Calvino does this frequently, intertwining reality with what humans want, showing how the things that we create for ourselves build up and suffocate us. In one city, The citizens wake up to find everything new. They have the 'latest refrigerator model', brand new clothes, shining floors. The garbage men haul away the filth of yesterday, things contaminated with a humans' touch and experiences. The dumps are forced to become more and more compact as these cities grow. The piles of faucets, books, shoes begin to stretch for the skies, on the verge of falling down and burying the perfect, pristine cities below.
Most of the cities remind us of our dreams or desires. A city that is cloaked in the expectations and utopias of those that do not live in it. It makes me think of all of the hopes and horrible predicaments that humans create for themselves. As an entire species, we are dreamers. Longing what we know is impossible, craving what can be found beside us. We craft miniature fantasies, ideal worlds, ideal cities. We create horrible places, miniature hells into which we toss our troubles. While, really, all of the places that we fathom are the place in which we reside. I am constantly daydreaming, creating more pleasing lives for myself and for others. Making people that will never be born, houses that will never be built. But, I cannot help be aware of where I truly stand in our world. 14, middle school, computer screens, reading responses. The concept of dreams and reality intertwining aren't limited to metaphorical terms. Beautiful places are built on dirt and dead creatures compressed in stones. Streets shaped by the steps of heavy pedestrians have stories to them; places where extinct animals once strode, where the wooden wheel of a wheelbarrow broke, spilling to bodies of dead war victims onto the charred streets below.
Calvino reminds us that places and that life are comprised of many things, small sections that unite to create a finished product. And, no matter how much these parts may seem to contradict each other, a polished creation is always born.
Calvino shows use how relations with others (represented as strings, or a mimic city), can grow either tiresome or completely overwhelming. When they become too much, the inhabitants leave, starting anew. Being able to abandon something, but not leave it unresolved! The dream of so many... Calvino does this frequently, intertwining reality with what humans want, showing how the things that we create for ourselves build up and suffocate us. In one city, The citizens wake up to find everything new. They have the 'latest refrigerator model', brand new clothes, shining floors. The garbage men haul away the filth of yesterday, things contaminated with a humans' touch and experiences. The dumps are forced to become more and more compact as these cities grow. The piles of faucets, books, shoes begin to stretch for the skies, on the verge of falling down and burying the perfect, pristine cities below.
Most of the cities remind us of our dreams or desires. A city that is cloaked in the expectations and utopias of those that do not live in it. It makes me think of all of the hopes and horrible predicaments that humans create for themselves. As an entire species, we are dreamers. Longing what we know is impossible, craving what can be found beside us. We craft miniature fantasies, ideal worlds, ideal cities. We create horrible places, miniature hells into which we toss our troubles. While, really, all of the places that we fathom are the place in which we reside. I am constantly daydreaming, creating more pleasing lives for myself and for others. Making people that will never be born, houses that will never be built. But, I cannot help be aware of where I truly stand in our world. 14, middle school, computer screens, reading responses. The concept of dreams and reality intertwining aren't limited to metaphorical terms. Beautiful places are built on dirt and dead creatures compressed in stones. Streets shaped by the steps of heavy pedestrians have stories to them; places where extinct animals once strode, where the wooden wheel of a wheelbarrow broke, spilling to bodies of dead war victims onto the charred streets below.
Calvino reminds us that places and that life are comprised of many things, small sections that unite to create a finished product. And, no matter how much these parts may seem to contradict each other, a polished creation is always born.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The Picture of Dorian Gray
There was once a rosy-cheeked, ivory skinned boy with hair that looked as though it were carved out of gold. He radiated not only an aura of beauty, but one of innocence as well; only pure thoughts could wander their way into his mind. His mere presence could calm tense company. His sweet voice was capable of taming all demonic beasts. All evil would halt in his, Dorian Gray's, path! All excluding Lord Henry and then, eventually, Dorian himself.
Dorian was lured into a horrible metamorphoses by Lord Henry's cynicism and intellectuality. Hypnotized by Lord Henry's ideas of how life should be taken advantage of, Dorian was lead into a trap. He became aware how pulchritudinous he was and started to dwell in his beauty and wealth. Vanity is the thing most capable of tearing apart an angelic being. It allows a person to become immortal through their own eyes. Old friends become hideous burdens and matinées are suddenly held higher than a human life. Why did Dorian have to fall victim to such a cruel, long death? The slow and repetitive stabs to his soul?
I allowed myself to fall for Dorian's facade constructed of his alluring beauty. But I had done so only because I longed so hopelessly for what Dorian once was. For his flushing cheeks and untroubled smile. The Dorian found in the portrait that Basil had painted for him. A portrait that aged instead of Dorian, who kept the looks of a lad into late adulthood. This portrait though, as days and years went by, did not age in the way a person would, but it depicted the soul of Dorian Gray. Blood ran through the hands of the Dorian in the painting, proof of the night Basil had been murdered by Dorian. A twisted grin appeared on its face when Dorian drove his young fiancée into suicide. The painting became disgusting, nauseating to look at. A repulsing monster lay comfortably in the heart of Dorian Gray!
He'd acted gullible, falling for each compliment that Lord Henry engulfed him in, and agreeing to desert Basil, who'd once been his closest friend. It was heartbreaking (a word that I barely ever use). While reading the novel, tears welled in my eyes and periodic cries of 'Oh! My Dorian dear!' were most likely heard by my family as I grieved over the deterioration of Dorian Gray's soul.
On the night that Dorian attempted to destroy the painting that mocked his very existence, the depiction of Dorian's soul won yet again by crushing Dorian under its weight. The dead body was not that of a beautiful creature, but was the body of the monster that had stayed hidden in Dorian's portrait: bloated, drenched in blood, and still wearing a grin on its face. Gray's soul was aware of its victory of its carriers mind. But, in the painting, stood the boy that Dorian once was, pale skinned and with cheeks that seemed to be lit on fire.
Dorian was lured into a horrible metamorphoses by Lord Henry's cynicism and intellectuality. Hypnotized by Lord Henry's ideas of how life should be taken advantage of, Dorian was lead into a trap. He became aware how pulchritudinous he was and started to dwell in his beauty and wealth. Vanity is the thing most capable of tearing apart an angelic being. It allows a person to become immortal through their own eyes. Old friends become hideous burdens and matinées are suddenly held higher than a human life. Why did Dorian have to fall victim to such a cruel, long death? The slow and repetitive stabs to his soul?
I allowed myself to fall for Dorian's facade constructed of his alluring beauty. But I had done so only because I longed so hopelessly for what Dorian once was. For his flushing cheeks and untroubled smile. The Dorian found in the portrait that Basil had painted for him. A portrait that aged instead of Dorian, who kept the looks of a lad into late adulthood. This portrait though, as days and years went by, did not age in the way a person would, but it depicted the soul of Dorian Gray. Blood ran through the hands of the Dorian in the painting, proof of the night Basil had been murdered by Dorian. A twisted grin appeared on its face when Dorian drove his young fiancée into suicide. The painting became disgusting, nauseating to look at. A repulsing monster lay comfortably in the heart of Dorian Gray!
He'd acted gullible, falling for each compliment that Lord Henry engulfed him in, and agreeing to desert Basil, who'd once been his closest friend. It was heartbreaking (a word that I barely ever use). While reading the novel, tears welled in my eyes and periodic cries of 'Oh! My Dorian dear!' were most likely heard by my family as I grieved over the deterioration of Dorian Gray's soul.
On the night that Dorian attempted to destroy the painting that mocked his very existence, the depiction of Dorian's soul won yet again by crushing Dorian under its weight. The dead body was not that of a beautiful creature, but was the body of the monster that had stayed hidden in Dorian's portrait: bloated, drenched in blood, and still wearing a grin on its face. Gray's soul was aware of its victory of its carriers mind. But, in the painting, stood the boy that Dorian once was, pale skinned and with cheeks that seemed to be lit on fire.
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