Tuesday, August 30, 2011
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde's dark novel The Picture of Dorian Gray provides insight into the flipping quarter that is human nature. The story's greatest strength, without a doubt, is its component of artistic vision and idea. Wilde takes the reader on a wild ride through the corroding mind of an externally beautiful boy, but internally withering remnants of a soul. While the prose demonstrates upmost thought and intellect through floral language, Dorian's transformation occurs swiftly. What is most disturbing about the text is not Dorian's steep downward spiral towards debauchery and his eventual demise, but rather Wilde's disturbing revelations about human nature. The effects of Wilde's tale are long-lasting: the reader will long after contemplate such themes as the power of influence, the fleeting but treasured natures of youthful purity and beauty, the dichotomy of soul and body, and several others. Religious parallels hinted at by Wilde and easily established by the reader keep the text connected to the literary canon. One can easily draw from the text the Genesis story in which Lord Henry is the equivalent to the snake, Dorian portrays Adam, and knowledge remains the constant. There is also the relation between Dorian and Jesus: Dorian must sacrifice himself for humanity, or at least Lord Henry's study of it, while the latter puts his G-d complex into dangerous motion. The ability to form connections to the past literary tradition demonstrates Wilde's complex artistic vision and his ability to keep the reader engaged for much beyond mere words typed onto a page. I chose The Picture of Dorian Gray not for its unpredictability in plot as I had already known--along with the rest of the literate world--how the text ends plot-wise, but rather for its unpredictability in subject and lessons. Wilde twists and turns on a trail of didacticism and thus is how he keeps his reader engaged. The plot itself when one breaks it down, is actually relatively simple. The ideas and themes, however, not quite. Overall, Wilde succeeds in doing what every single author attempts to accomplish: even long after reading the final chapter and putting the book back onto the shelf, the reader never really stops finishing the text as he or she continues to contemplate the text for, well, just about eternity.
Friday, August 26, 2011
My 6 Most Memorable Books
I feel I should put a disclaimer before my list: few of these texts are scholarly or AP-level; they are just the books that are glued to my memory and influence and guide me in living my life.
1. Room by Emma Donoghue: Self-explanatory; see previous post.
2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon: Mark Haddon colorfully (but without the color yellow, of course!) constructs the lonely, magical, and endearing world of autistic 15 year-old Christopher John Francis Boone. The final sentence of the first-person narrative, "And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? and I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything," reminds me as a reader and as a young adult coming into the world that even when the world says 'no,' I can do anything too.
Note: This quote is so important to me that I copy-and-pasted it from my favorite quotes on Facebook!
3. Eloise by Kay Thompson: Okay, okay, Kay Thompson's childish creation may not be PCDS scholarly reading material at all, but the childlike magic and joy de vivre sticks with the reader, even if he or she is over the age of six. Eloise is memorable because it always reminds me to stay youthful with an active imagination like the spunky, self-described 'city-child' protagonist.
4. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote: This novella about a shallow girl has made me a pondering scholar. The themes of isolation and identity haunt me to this day and so I find myself frequently flipping back and forth through the pages looking for some be-all, end-all answer from Mr. Capote about these fickle themes. Unfortunately--or rather, fortunately for the intelligent reader--no such luck, and thus I remain--and shall remain--contemplating Holly Golightly's somewhat vacuous world.
5. A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon: This text has the qualities that every author should aspire for: it provides an enjoyable reading experience and leaves the reader thinking after. The text left me thinking about the nature of family, secrets, and of course, eczema.
6. The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: I like to think of this as not a populist text intended for the promotion of the People's Party, but rather a case for dreaming big. Whatever Baum's original intention for his work was, this sparkling tale reminds me to dream big and to remember that all evil is no more than an ephemeral entity that can easily be melted or squashed by a house.
1. Room by Emma Donoghue: Self-explanatory; see previous post.
2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon: Mark Haddon colorfully (but without the color yellow, of course!) constructs the lonely, magical, and endearing world of autistic 15 year-old Christopher John Francis Boone. The final sentence of the first-person narrative, "And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? and I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything," reminds me as a reader and as a young adult coming into the world that even when the world says 'no,' I can do anything too.
Note: This quote is so important to me that I copy-and-pasted it from my favorite quotes on Facebook!
3. Eloise by Kay Thompson: Okay, okay, Kay Thompson's childish creation may not be PCDS scholarly reading material at all, but the childlike magic and joy de vivre sticks with the reader, even if he or she is over the age of six. Eloise is memorable because it always reminds me to stay youthful with an active imagination like the spunky, self-described 'city-child' protagonist.
4. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote: This novella about a shallow girl has made me a pondering scholar. The themes of isolation and identity haunt me to this day and so I find myself frequently flipping back and forth through the pages looking for some be-all, end-all answer from Mr. Capote about these fickle themes. Unfortunately--or rather, fortunately for the intelligent reader--no such luck, and thus I remain--and shall remain--contemplating Holly Golightly's somewhat vacuous world.
5. A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon: This text has the qualities that every author should aspire for: it provides an enjoyable reading experience and leaves the reader thinking after. The text left me thinking about the nature of family, secrets, and of course, eczema.
6. The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: I like to think of this as not a populist text intended for the promotion of the People's Party, but rather a case for dreaming big. Whatever Baum's original intention for his work was, this sparkling tale reminds me to dream big and to remember that all evil is no more than an ephemeral entity that can easily be melted or squashed by a house.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Room by Emma Donoghue
"Hey, you know what, if you put him under your pillow a fairy will come in the night invisibly and turn him into money."
"Not in here, sorry," says Ma.
"Why not?"
"The tooth fairy does not know about Room." Her eyes are looking through the walls.
Outside has everything. Whenever I think of a thing now like skis or fireworks or islands or elevators or yo-yos, I have to remember they're real, they're actually happening in Outside all together. It makes my head tired. And people too, firefighters teachers burglars babies saints soccer players and all sorts, they're all really in Outside. I'm not there, though, me and Ma, we're the only ones not there. Are we still real?
After dinner Ma tells me Hansel and Gretel and How the Berlin Wall Fell Down and Rumpelstiltskin. I like when the queen has to guess the little man's name or else he'll take her baby away. "Are stories true?"
"Which ones?"
"The mermaid mother and Hansel and Gretel and all them."
"Well," says Ma, "not literally."
"What's--"
"They're magic, they're not about real people walking around today."
"So they're fake."
"No, no. Stories are a different kind of true."
My face is all scrunched up from trying to understand. "Is the Berlin Wall true?"
"Well, there was a wall, but it's not there anymore."
I'm so tired I'm going to rip in two like Rumpelstiltskin did at the end.
"Night-night," says Ma, shutting the doors of Wardrobe, "sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite."
Though I had to drive one hour home from volunteering downtown, complete thirty convoluted Calculus problems, search high and low to find the golden ratio between Hershey's syrup and milk for the perfect chocolate milk, and much more, my most daunting task of the night has without a doubt been picking just one passage from Emma Donoghue's Room that, as your blog says, Mr. Coon, 'illustrates why [I] find it to be excellent storytelling.' Why the difficulty? Well, just about every carefully placed punctuation mark, conversation, and moment of narration sparkles as some of the best storytelling I have experienced in my not-quite-adult life. And thus picking just one brief passage that demonstrates the required criterium has taken me nearly twenty minutes. I finally settled on the above passage for both its excellent storytelling, as well as its relevance that aptly suits this assignment and the question, 'What makes good storytelling?' posed in class today. However, Room is not merely good storytelling--it is so marvelous that it reminds the reader why stories exist. Aside from the captivating plot that keeps the reader palpitating whilst dancing on his or her toes out of excitement and Donoghue's carefully crafted wording that makes the reader pause and reflect to think about such heavy subjects as human nature, Room's strongest feature that makes it a storytelling gem is its endearing characters. Precocious, but socially deficient from years of isolation, 5 year-old narrator Jack and his adoring, but emotionally and physically damaged, mother are the hero and heroine, respectively of this at-times jaw-dropping, but always charming, tale. Few stories are so magical that they make even the unswayed of readers--yours truly typically being self-categorized as this--laugh, cry, and just be completely and utterly rapt in the novel's caress. If you ever pick up Room, beware: you will be so consumed in Jack's colorful world, you will not be able to floss, count, or tie your shoelaces properly until you finish the novel, put it down, and just say, "Wow."
"Not in here, sorry," says Ma.
"Why not?"
"The tooth fairy does not know about Room." Her eyes are looking through the walls.
Outside has everything. Whenever I think of a thing now like skis or fireworks or islands or elevators or yo-yos, I have to remember they're real, they're actually happening in Outside all together. It makes my head tired. And people too, firefighters teachers burglars babies saints soccer players and all sorts, they're all really in Outside. I'm not there, though, me and Ma, we're the only ones not there. Are we still real?
After dinner Ma tells me Hansel and Gretel and How the Berlin Wall Fell Down and Rumpelstiltskin. I like when the queen has to guess the little man's name or else he'll take her baby away. "Are stories true?"
"Which ones?"
"The mermaid mother and Hansel and Gretel and all them."
"Well," says Ma, "not literally."
"What's--"
"They're magic, they're not about real people walking around today."
"So they're fake."
"No, no. Stories are a different kind of true."
My face is all scrunched up from trying to understand. "Is the Berlin Wall true?"
"Well, there was a wall, but it's not there anymore."
I'm so tired I'm going to rip in two like Rumpelstiltskin did at the end.
"Night-night," says Ma, shutting the doors of Wardrobe, "sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite."
Though I had to drive one hour home from volunteering downtown, complete thirty convoluted Calculus problems, search high and low to find the golden ratio between Hershey's syrup and milk for the perfect chocolate milk, and much more, my most daunting task of the night has without a doubt been picking just one passage from Emma Donoghue's Room that, as your blog says, Mr. Coon, 'illustrates why [I] find it to be excellent storytelling.' Why the difficulty? Well, just about every carefully placed punctuation mark, conversation, and moment of narration sparkles as some of the best storytelling I have experienced in my not-quite-adult life. And thus picking just one brief passage that demonstrates the required criterium has taken me nearly twenty minutes. I finally settled on the above passage for both its excellent storytelling, as well as its relevance that aptly suits this assignment and the question, 'What makes good storytelling?' posed in class today. However, Room is not merely good storytelling--it is so marvelous that it reminds the reader why stories exist. Aside from the captivating plot that keeps the reader palpitating whilst dancing on his or her toes out of excitement and Donoghue's carefully crafted wording that makes the reader pause and reflect to think about such heavy subjects as human nature, Room's strongest feature that makes it a storytelling gem is its endearing characters. Precocious, but socially deficient from years of isolation, 5 year-old narrator Jack and his adoring, but emotionally and physically damaged, mother are the hero and heroine, respectively of this at-times jaw-dropping, but always charming, tale. Few stories are so magical that they make even the unswayed of readers--yours truly typically being self-categorized as this--laugh, cry, and just be completely and utterly rapt in the novel's caress. If you ever pick up Room, beware: you will be so consumed in Jack's colorful world, you will not be able to floss, count, or tie your shoelaces properly until you finish the novel, put it down, and just say, "Wow."
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