Thin Yet Thick: Night

Night

Elie Wiesel
115 pages

{Thin Yet Thick reads might be short in page length - 200 pages or less - but are thick and deep in meaning.}

In his memoir, winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, Elie Wiesel describes his terrifying experiences in the concentration camps of World War II. Born in Sighet, Transylvania (present-day Hungary) Wiesel was taken along with his family in 1944 to Auschwitz, and then later on to Buchenwald with his father. As a teenager, Wiesel's faith was put to the ultimate test as he witnessed and suffered from the in-humane experiences which must never be allowed to happen again.

Wiesel's writing style throughout the book is very consistent, and purposeful. Maybe it is part of the translation, but his sentences are simple and short, giving the voice of the story a sharp and impactful feeling. This writing style also leaves the reader feeling as if they have been told everything. Night is raw and real, unabashed and unabridged. It shows his reconfirmed trust in the human race, although it had dwindled to little during the many months he spent in suffering. He wrote, "How was it possible that...the world kept silent?"

Throughout this powerful story, there are so many distinct moments that might make the reader cry, but for me, it was not a specific event that had a tear rolling down my cheek. There is this horrible paradox to Wiesel's story: "...a convoy of cattle cars was waiting. The Hungarian police made us climb into the cars, eighty persons in each one. The lucky ones found themselves near a window; they could watch the blooming countryside flit by." Lines like these got me every time, as it was so horrific to realize the contrast between the dark, dirty confines of the cattle cars or the concentration camps, and the sun shining in a bluebird sky above.

I tried to capture that image in the photo above, to show that although this might be a dark and sorrowful story, light still peeps in around the edges, showing the initial optimism and hope of the Jewish people. In his Nobel Peace Prize Speech, Wiesel concluded by saying, "Thank you, people of Norway, for declaring on this singular occasion that our survival has meaning for mankind." So in the end, something beautiful did come out of the Holocaust - the survivors. They were like the grass and the dandelions, a simple beauty, finally being noticed.

100th Blog Post: Living the Dream in the Valley of Ashes

The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
180 pages

I don't feel I have the credibility to really write a review of the novel, therefore I would like to use the opportunity of this 100th post to discuss what is said to be the greatest American novel of all time: The Great Gatsby.

The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world.   - page 68

New York, 1922. The Jazz Age is in full swing, and with World War I at a close, the American people are restless, alive with post-war excitement and opportunity. Nick Carraway has just moved to Long Island looking to get started in the "bond business", and winds up buying a home next door to the grand and mysterious Jay Gatsby. After being invited to one of his neighbor's lavish parties, Nick soon learns of Gatsby's secrets, and the love he is desperately trying to find again.

The following are some of my favorite passages from the book, and my understanding of them. Each of the selections refer to a prominent theme of the novel or a character that Fitzgerald so genuinely created.

But I can still read the gray names, and they will give you a better impression than my generalities of those who accepted Gatsby's hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him.   -page 61,

In this chapter of the the novel, Nick lists all of the people who attended Gatsby's parties that summer. To me, this was one of the most interesting sections. All of these people, businessmen, actors and actresses, politicians, and housewives, some invited and some not, came to sprawl out in his lawn furniture, drink his liquor, and dance to his music - but did him the favor of knowing nothing about him. Some visitors had never even met the fabled Mr. Gatsby, some failed to believe he even existed.

At least a dozen men, some of them a little better off than he was, explained to him that wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond.
"Back out," he suggested after a moment. "Put her in reverse."
"But the wheel's off!"
"No harm in trying." he said. -page 55

In this scene, a drunk driver has driven his new car into a ditch after pulling out of Gatsby's driveway. He fails to understand that it is impossible to drive the car now that the wheel has fallen off, and is determined to get his hands back on the wheel. This hidden metaphor represents the true American spirit in the eyes of Fitzgerald. He believes in the American will to keep going after times of trouble. Whether that has been after losing a job, overcoming an illness, or wrecking a car, the American dream has always been to go on.

"If it wasn't for the mist we could see your home across the bay," said Gatsby. "You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock."   -page 92

Here Gatsby explains to Daisy that her house is directly across from his, only a vast expanse of water separating them from one another. This "green light" not only stands for his goal to win back Daisy's heart, but for the elaborate future he had planned out for himself as a young child. Gatsby's dreams will always be there, like the green light, which will shine bright until it is turned off. The problem with Gatsby's planned-out future is that no matter how hard he tries to swim across the bay to reach it, he never will, as the buoy of fate will prevent him from ever reaching the opposite shore.

This is the Valley of Ashes - a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens...The eyes of Doctor T.J Eckleburg are blue and gigantic - their retinas one-yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose...his eyes, dimmed a little by paintless days under sun and rain, brood over the solemn dumping ground.  -page 23

All of the major events of this story take place under the watchful gaze of Doctor T.J Eckleburg. Several views can be taken on what he is meant to symbolize, but I narrowed down my opinions to just two.
1) Eckleburg has no fingers, or arms, only eyes, and I take that to mean that people do too much watching and not enough doing. We tend to sit back and stare at the corruption, the wrong, the criminal - and never often enough use our hands to make a change.
2) The eyes of Eckleburg represent God in a way that makes us believe that He sees everything we do, but lets us discover for ourselves the best possible way to fix our mistakes.

The Great Gatsby's new film version will be hitting theaters on May 10th! To view the trailer click here


Tonight is World Book Night 2013, a night where half a million books will be given out to those who are light or non-readers in our community. Kicking off last year, the program was started to bring and spread the joy of reading to everyone, everywhere. To find out how you can get involved in 2014, visit: http://www.us.worldbooknight.org  Happy reading!

Finding Solace in Springtime and Poetry

Spring has arrived. The season took its time this year, waltzing in a week or so later that its scheduled date. But, never the less, it has come. And, with the calender telling us it is April, I thought I would also take a moment to point out this month is National Poetry Month.

The following is the poem O Sweet Spontaneous by e.e. cummings, written in 1920. Many reviews of this poem I have seen read in to this poem much deeper that its surface meaning - relating it to society and its problems - but I like this piece for its ease. e.e. cummings describes spring's beauty without ever actually describing it. He doesn't embellish the blue skies, or the smell of the lilies. He doesn't listen to the bees buzzing or the robins chirping. The sun does not warm his face, nor do the new emerald green leaves give him shade. To him, spring just is.

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty .how
oftn have the religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)


What is very unusual about this poem is it's format (which Blogger did not quite let me recreate here) - poetry is known for having no set rules, but the spelling of oftn was not a slip of my fingers on the keys, and .how is not a grammatical error. e.e cummings wrote many of his poems this way, and he is probably the only person who will ever know why.

So I leave you with this. I leave you hoping that as expressed in the picture above, spring brings you beauty through the ugly, hope through the doubt, and light through the darkness. As Emily Dickinson once wrote, "A Light exists in Spring / Not present on the Year / At any other period"

Between Shades of Gray

Between Shades of Gray
Ruta Sepetys
338 pages

It is 1941 and World War II is tearing through Europe, but the horrific events taking place in the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are unknown to the rest of the world. Fifteen-year-old Lina Vilkas is winding down the school year, and spending her free-time lost in colored pencils and paint, when a knock on her front door changes her life forever. She and her family are taken from their home in Lithuania by the Soviet secret police and are thrown into cattle cars bound for northern Siberia. Along the way, Lina embeds clues into her drawings hoping if they are passed along, they might reach her father, and bring him back to them. In this moving story, Lina will spend the next twelve years fighting for her life as well as others' in the prison camps the world never knew about.

The horrific events that occurred between 1941 and 1954 under the rule of Josef Stalin was a part of history I had never heard of before reading this book. When I first started reading, I had a few questions, so I turned to my grandfather for the answers. We had a really nice discussion, although the topic was not uplifting, and I enjoyed hearing what he had to say (as I always do). I swear, my grandfather should have been a history teacher, he knows so much about the past. He tells me that's one of the side effects of being an avid reader: you learn a whole lot :)

Between Shades of Gray is Sepetys' first novel, and based on the events her Lithuanian relatives faced during this hidden part of history. She says in the author's note, "Speaking about their experience meant immediate imprisonment or deportation back to Siberia. As a result, the horrors they endured went dormant, a hideous secret shared by millions of people."

Sepetys brings to light these tragedies through Lina, her brother Jonas, and their friend Andrius in a way that is sometimes humorous, and sometimes heartbreaking. Interspersed with flashbacks to the past, Sepetys draws parallels to the life Lina used to live, and the one she must now fight for. Between Shades of Gray is a very character driven novel, therefore, in order to love the plot, the reader must love the characters. All of Sepety's characters are drawn to be very real, but the only thing I would have liked more of was more references to Lina's father. A strong connection is developed between Lina and her mother who is described as, "the only sun in the polar night."

Powerful and insightful, Between Shades of Gray, uncovers a hidden section of mankind's timeline in a way its readers are likely never to forget.

Attending Teen Arts 2013

It has been much too long since I have posted here, but I finally have something exciting to write about. Last Wednesday, I was choosen to attend the Teen Arts Festival as a representative of my school in the Creative Writing category. It was a day-long event filled with feedback seminars, art-viewing, and workshops for all kinds of artists.

In attending the Writing Feedback Seminar, I received great praise for my short story, as well as advise and suggestions about the writing life in general. Attendees were placed in small groups of four to five, and were able to read aloud their writing while others looked on with their own copies.

After this session, a friend and I attended a poetry reading, where anyone was welcome to make their way to the podium and read aloud. The rest of the day was spent viewing dance performances, browsing the art exhibits and getting a bite to eat in the cafeteria. Overall, it was a fantastic day, and I hope I get the opportunity to go back next year!


One of the art exibits displaying the work of high school students



 

My writing (on right) hanging with other stories, essays,
and poems at the festival

On a side note, Amazon just recently bought Goodreads, the social network site for book-lovers. It has been stated that with the two sites now linked, it will soon be possible to update your progress and rating of the book directly in the e-book if reading on a Kindle. E-books will now be able to be purchased through Goodreads as well. Try these two links, here and here for more information and opinions.

Re-Reading To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
376 pages

I few years ago, I read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time. Looking back now, I can say that I was too young to fully understand this timeless novel. At that time, I was baffled by words like cynical, amiable, and chiffarobe - words that were key to the story and its meaning.

Now, four years later, this book has been given much more meaning for me. And I'd like to share that with you.

Introduction
To Kill a Mockingbird tells the unforgettable story of a sleepy southern town, in the years post  - Great Depression. It tackles the common issues of growing up, and doing what is right, although that action may not be the easiest. Atticus Finch, and his children see the effects that hatred and bias have on their town first-hand, and through the eyes of young Scout, the reader will experience it too.

Characters
My favorite character from To Kill a Mockingbird is most certainly Miss Maudie Atkinson, the widowed gardener who lives across the street. Lee describes this women in the passage: "Miss Maudie hated her house: time spent indoors was time wasted. She was a widow, a chameleon lady who worked in her flower beds in an old straw hat and men's coveralls, but after her five o'clock bath she would appear on the porch and reign over the street in magisterial beauty."

Miss Maudie is one of the few characters who plays an important maternal role for Scout and Jem, as their own mother died in early years. She tells them the plain, hard truth, with no regard for their age and provides them with important life lessons. Miss Maudie is also in my opinion the funniest character in the story: "Now keep out of the way of the carpenters...I'll be in my azaleas and can't watch you. Plank might hit you." and "Jem Finch, I called to find out if you and your colleagues can eat some cake. Got up at five to make it, so you better to say yes." are lines I found myself really having a good laugh at - especially if you read them in a southern accent.

Setting
Maycomb is I guess what many people will call a typical Southern town, but as I have never been to "the South" I can't exactly vouch for that. "Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it." At this time (1930s) this fictional town is both old and tired. Arising out of the Great Depression, "Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself." and self-pride and tradition fueled its only engine.

Aunt Alexandra is a women bound completely to tradition, and to Scout she explains the caste system of the town. First, there are people like themselves - the "Fine Folk" who come from distinct family lineage, and have been "squatting on the same patch of land for decades." Then there are people like the Cunninghams, a family with so poor, "but once you earn their respect, they will be for you tooth and nail." The Ewells are a no-good mystery, living on relief checks from the state, and treat everyone with disrespect. And then are the "Negroes". The line that struck me the most in this novel is said by Tom Robinson, a black man who is accused for a crime he never committed. To Atticus he says, "If you were a 'Negro' like me Mr. Finch, you'd be scared too."

Question
One of my favorite lines of the novel is when Scout makes an observation about the people of her town: "I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks." Her brother, Jem, goes on to say that when he was young like her, he thought the same, but now being twelve years old, he realizes "[that] if there is only one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other?"

This is an interesting question, as I believe it is still relevant in today's society. Although there is not as much hatred between races anymore, humans still tend to find ways to distance ourselves from others who do not fit our idea of a "Fine folk" (a term Scout likes to use.) Wars still plague the years, and prejudice still clouds many visions.


After reading To Kill a Mockingbird for a second time, I believe everyone needs to return to their high school years and read Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel for a first, second, and maybe even a third time.

The Movie vs. The Book: Safe Haven

 

On Friday night, a few friends and I went to see the film adaption of Nicholas Sparks' novel Safe Haven starring Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel.

 

The theater was filled mostly with teenage girls, most of whom were clinging to tissues and each other by the time the credits started rolling.

Here is my brief introduction to the story from a previous post:
After traveling from place to plate for several months, Katie Feldman has finally settled down in Southport, North Carolina, the classic small town where everyone knows everything about everybody. But Katie has a secret, something she has worked to keep hidden since she left Boston. Just when she thinks Southport is not the place for her, Katie meets Alex - a kind, widowed store owner with two young children. As Katie struggles with her private knowledge, and her feelings for Alex, she comes to discover that love is the only true safe haven.

 

Now here's the thing about reading the book first,  you don't end up crying, because you already know what is going to happen. (take the ReadIt1st pledge here). And although I found myself not shedding any tears, that does not mean I didn't not feel the emotionally climatic ending that was portrayed perfectly, and actually much better than I expected.

The movies that have been derived from Sparks' books in the past have been very romanticised, very dramatic films. Safe Haven was different, making this movie my favorite out of the ones I have seen. Rated at PG-13, this movie was very reserved, and although Katie's ex-husband ends up looking quite stalker-like/very creepy while he wanders around Safe Haven looking for her (one of my friends had me laughing very hard at this moment as she had whispered to me "The bad guy is very wet. Why so wet?") this movie was highly appropriate for the many teenage girls seated in the theater. Don't get me wrong, this was not a "kid" movie by any means, teenagers and adults are more the central and suggested age level.
 

Several new scenes were added to the movie, and I actually think these new scenes enhanced the story in parts where the book was lacking. In my review of the book, I believe I mentioned that it was written very cinematically, therefore, the novel lacked the more in depth plot I would have preferred. My favorite added scene is when Alex falls through the hole in Katie's kitchen floor. This moment certainly had the audience laughing, as well as during several other parts of the movie. You can watch the kitchen floor scene for yourself  here.

 

Overall, I was highly impressed with this adaptation of the novel, it was funny, it was a bit scary, and emotionally impactful. It stresses the ideals of family, finding your passion, and the excitement of true love. To be honest, I think I liked the movie better than the book! ;)