Okay, so it's Christmas break now (yay! We all survived another round of finals!), and you're looking for a good book to read. You absolutely MUST read Gilead by Marilynne something-or-other. I absolutely loved it!! We read it as the last book in my American Novel class, so that we could end on something more uplifting. And it was definitely an uplifting book.
It's written as a letter from a 76 year-old preacher to his 7 year-old son. It's part advice on living, part memoir, and part journal as the preacher reflects on what happened in his life and what's happening right now in his life.
I don't know why, but it just touched me in a way no book has in awhile. Except maybe The Secret Life of Bees that I read this summer. I think that it's because neither book focuses on what's going wrong in society, but rather how people have created beauty in a hard situation. Throughout my American Novel class we discussed the question of why American literature (or any literature really) is so hard on society. And it's true that most "good" literature does point out the problems of society, but these two books made me aware of problems in society, while still making me filling good about life. They're not "light" reading, but it's so good.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Kenneth Branagh
Okay, so this isn't about a book. It's about my love affair with Kenneth Branagh. The only reason I like my Shakespeare class is that I get to watch a LOT of movies with him in it. I love all his different interpretations of Shakespeare's movies. If you haven't seen it yet, you MUST watch the version of Love's Labour's Lost that he did. It's a 1930's style musical. You can't get much better than that (aka, I rented on a Friday night and made Andy watch it with me).
So the next time you're looking for a good movie, go get a Branagh Shakespeare production. But Bonnie, don't rent Henry V because the war scene at the end is very bloody and awful and I know that you'll hate it. It's a great movie, just very bloody and violent.
So the next time you're looking for a good movie, go get a Branagh Shakespeare production. But Bonnie, don't rent Henry V because the war scene at the end is very bloody and awful and I know that you'll hate it. It's a great movie, just very bloody and violent.
Friday, October 17, 2008
My Antonia and Moby-Dick
It's amazing how sludging through one book can make you so grateful for another book. I distinctly remember HATING My Antonia when I read it in high school. We just read it in my American Novel class though, and I loved it. I don't know if I've just matured enough to enjoy it and understand it or what, but I think it might have something to do with the fact that I had to sludge through Moby-Dick right before that.
After reading chapters upon chapters of descriptions of whales and the anatomy of whales, the pages of description about the prairie seemed like a breeze.
However, I did come up with some interesting thoughts for both books. Since My Antonia is freshest in my mind I'll do that one right now. For all the bad things about Willa Cather, she brings me back home. Her story is set in a small town in Nebraska at the end of the 19th century. I think part of the reason I liked it this time, is that I identify with the narrator. He's left Nebraska and is living in New York and suddenly he's very fond of Nebraska. That's how I am with Kansas. I wasn't necessarily a huge fan of it while I lived there, but since moving to Utah I've started to realize all of the absolutely amazing things about Kansas. At the same time, much like the narrator, I'm scared to go back. Because every time I go back, it's not the same Kansas that I've remembered.
On Saturday I was cleaning my room and found my English Portfolio from high school (a really big folder with every English paper/project I did through all four years) and was reading the paper I wrote for My Antonia. I'm not surprised that I got a B on it because I wrote about how Cather is writing about the inability of marriage to provide a meaningful relationship. When you look at most of the marriages that Jim sees in his childhood and youth that might be true, but his grandparents have an excellent marriage and so does Antonia at the end of the book. So basically my entire point was false. I don't know how on earth I even managed to get a B on that... oh well. I'm almost tempted to completely revise it and turn it in for a paper I need to write for my American Novel class.
After reading chapters upon chapters of descriptions of whales and the anatomy of whales, the pages of description about the prairie seemed like a breeze.
However, I did come up with some interesting thoughts for both books. Since My Antonia is freshest in my mind I'll do that one right now. For all the bad things about Willa Cather, she brings me back home. Her story is set in a small town in Nebraska at the end of the 19th century. I think part of the reason I liked it this time, is that I identify with the narrator. He's left Nebraska and is living in New York and suddenly he's very fond of Nebraska. That's how I am with Kansas. I wasn't necessarily a huge fan of it while I lived there, but since moving to Utah I've started to realize all of the absolutely amazing things about Kansas. At the same time, much like the narrator, I'm scared to go back. Because every time I go back, it's not the same Kansas that I've remembered.
On Saturday I was cleaning my room and found my English Portfolio from high school (a really big folder with every English paper/project I did through all four years) and was reading the paper I wrote for My Antonia. I'm not surprised that I got a B on it because I wrote about how Cather is writing about the inability of marriage to provide a meaningful relationship. When you look at most of the marriages that Jim sees in his childhood and youth that might be true, but his grandparents have an excellent marriage and so does Antonia at the end of the book. So basically my entire point was false. I don't know how on earth I even managed to get a B on that... oh well. I'm almost tempted to completely revise it and turn it in for a paper I need to write for my American Novel class.
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